


A Handful of Bullet Shells

by DragonSilk



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: F/M, Fantasy, POV Second Person, Psychological, Reader-Insert, Science Fiction, Slow Romance, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSilk/pseuds/DragonSilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-WARNING- Playing a virtual reality game can distort your perception of reality.</p>
<p>"As you steadied the pistol, aiming straight for where his heart should be, your only thought was that none of this could possibly be real."</p>
<p>Seto Kaiba/Reader</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Level 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! Nor am I making any profit off this work. The title of this fic was derived from the lyrics of a song, "Tell Them That She's Not Scared," which I also don't own.
> 
> This game is partially set in the 'real' world, and partially set in the virtual reality world that you (as the reader) are developing. Yes, this story is written from a second person point of view, also known as a reader insert, but I do not use any descriptive blanks. Nor do I give my reader character a name or physical description. 
> 
> Enjoy~!  
> Monsters mentioned in this chapter:  
> [Chaos Sorcerer](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Chaos_Sorcerer)

From your angle, the Chaos Sorcerer was an easy target. It was facing away from you, completely focused on sending spells at Kaiba, so you had plenty of time to switch from the machine gun to a shotgun. You checked to make sure your gun was loaded and then took an extra moment to aim for the Sorcerer's head. Chaos Sorcerers were strong, so you couldn't afford to miss. 

BAM! You shot, and it staggered back. In a moment, it would probably turn its attention to you, so you quickly readjusted your aim. BAM! Another shot, this time through the chest, and hopefully, the heart. You waited a moment, ready to shoot it again if need be, but it disappeared, leaving behind a small bag. 

A quick scan of the area revealed that nothing else was nearby. You switched back to your machine gun, keeping it out just in case something decided to jump out at you from the murky fog of this level. Perhaps you should rethink having this stage as the first level. Being in this fog was much creepier than you thought it would be, and you didn't want to scare people right away. 

“I didn't need your help.” You turned to look at Kaiba and tried not to flinch away from his glare. 

“It wasn't help. The sorcerer was completely focused on you, making it a much easier kill than it would have been otherwise. This way I get the experience and the loot. They drop some pretty good loot, too.” Before Kaiba could think about stealing your loot, he didn't strike you as the sort of man who actually cared about gaming courtesies, you strode over to the small bag and picked it up. You held it out for him to see before commenting, “We were thinking about having people actually search the dead bodies, but that idea got voted out. Some people were concerned it would be too morbid and creepy.” You opened the bag and instantly words floated above the items inside. 

You pulled out the bright orange sphere. “Bombs can be very useful.” You tossed it in Kaiba's direction and snapped your fingers so that it triggered right above his head. It didn't do any damage, you threw it too high for that, but you did feel a small sense of satisfaction as he lurched back in surprise. 

It was official. You loved your job.  
  


**Earlier that week.**

You hated your boss, and surprisingly, you didn't mean Seto Kaiba. No, you might work at Kaiba Corp, but Seto Kaiba was your boss' boss and not someone you saw very often. You had no reason to feel any dislike for Mr. Kaiba. Sure, he came into your department from time to time and acted like a raging jackass to everyone, but at least he never took credit for your work. 

Not like your boss, who was off fucking a secretary or something while you worked out the bugs in Kaiba Corp's newest virtual reality game. Technically, as the lead programmer, it was your boss' job to oversee everything that was going on and work out the problems in the final stages of all the codes. He should be the one who had the final say in the game's design, but in reality, he did almost nothing except for throw all his work your way and then take credit for it. 

So when Seto Kaiba stormed in early in the day, you were nearly giddy with glee. You were resolving an issue with the first level's boss battle while your boss was off doing god-knows-who. A visit from Kaiba was never a good thing, but you were too pleased that he would finally catch your good-for-nothing-asshole-of-a-boss slacking off to care. 

“Where's the lead?” Kaiba demanded when nobody immediately jumped up to greet him. 

While you couldn't throw your boss under the bus, no matter how delicious the thought was, you could still make yourself look good. You stepped forward and braced yourself for the attention that you were about to receive. “He's off fu—taking a break.” 

Even though you'd braced yourself, Kaiba's glare was still disconcerting. The force of that stare wasn't something that you could simply brace against. He seemed to study every single detail as he looked at you. “Who are you?” he snapped. 

“The scapegoat.” Maybe joking wasn't the way to go with Kaiba, but the words slipped out before you could think about them, and it was too late now. “When everything goes well, the lead takes credit, but the moment it crashes and burns it's all my fault. I can answer any questions you might have about our current progress.” 

He was eying you skeptically. “What's the current status on the project?” 

It was a question that only the lead should be able to answer easily because it involved knowing what everyone was working on and where they were. “The first two levels are completely written. We're debugging them now so that we can use them as a test harness for the battle system, which has also been coded. Part of the team is working on the third level, but the focus right now is getting the battle system completely operational.” 

If he was surprised by your answer, he didn't show it. “Does the game actually run on the system?” 

“Yes. The levels themselves are easy to test on simulators, and most of the time that's faster, but we do all of our testing for the battle system by using the pods. Since it's designed for virtual reality, it's nearly impossible to test it without actually going in there.” 

He cast his glare around the room at everyone before his gaze focused on your computer. “What were you working on before I came in?” 

“The AI for the first boss isn't behaving like it should so I'm debugging it.” 

“Is that the only bug in the first level?” 

“The only major bug left. There are still some little ones I'm sure.” 

“Save your work and run the level on a simulator,” he demanded. 

“Right away!” You quickly copied all the code you were working on over to a new file and saved it. You weren't done with all of your changes, and you didn't want to risk one of them crashing the level while you gave a demonstration for Kaiba. 

You offered your chair to Kaiba, and as he sat down, you booted up the simulator. 

“Our current simulator allows you to walk through the level like a ghost. Battles aren't triggered but all completed cut scenes are, and you still have to obey the world's boundaries. It's simply to observe the world and ensure that everything is properly placed.” 

“ **Completed** cut scenes?” 

You cringed. You should have expected him to pick up on that. Hopefully he wasn't about to snap and fire anyone. “They aren't all completed for the first level yet. The animation team isn't working on the cut scenes in order, and I believe most of their focus right now is on the backgrounds and characters for the later levels. Cut scenes are their last priority.” At least, that was what you were last told by the animation department. They sometimes blew you off since they technically didn't have to answer to you. Even your lead didn't really have much power over them, but at least they had to keep **him** updated on their progress. 

Kaiba simply grunted, and you had a feeling that the animation department would be getting a visit after this. Those poor, pathetic sods. 

“Does this actually do anything or is this your pathetic excuse for a level?” 

You nearly jumped out of your skin at Kaiba's abruptly sharp comment. You hit the button to compile the first level before pushing the keyboard toward Kaiba. “Would you like to navigate the level yourself or should I show you the details?” 

“Despite what you might think, not everyone shares your low intelligence. I am perfectly capable of navigating a game without your commentary.” He took over the keyboard and mouse and began thoroughly inspecting the level. 

As he navigated the level, you bit your lip and tried not to supply him with any knowledge that he might find useless or annoying. It wasn't too hard, you were fascinated by the complex things that he attempted as he searched for bugs in your program. He found a few small errors that you would never have thought your code could produce. 

He occasionally pointed out things that he didn't like and that he wanted changed. Some of those things didn't have anything to do with the gameplay and were details that the animation team would have to work out. For example, he claimed that there was a problem with the design of one of the monsters. You simply wrote down his comments in silence. It wouldn't help if you tried to tell him that your team wasn't responsible for the animation. 

It might seem weird, but despite all of his negative comments, you were pleased that he was still playing the game. When he was really displeased with someone's work, he often verbally tore their head off before storming out of the room. His comments might not be nice, but they were necessary, and it wasn't like Kaiba ever _praised_ anyone. Ever. 

Then your boss hurried into the room. His shirt was sloppily buttoned and his hair was a mess, suggesting that he must have heard from someone that Kaiba was in your department. “Mr. Kaiba! What a pleasure!” You were roughly shoved out of the way as your boss began to kiss Kaiba's ass. “I see you're looking at an... _example_ of the work we have completed! We're making very good time on the game. Don't you agree?” 

“This game is a complete mess! Where the hell were you?!” Kaiba thundered. 

Well, maybe he was just saving his hatred of the game for the person in charge. Not that that actually seemed like something Kaiba would do. You tried to fade into the background. You weren't going to get involved if you could avoid it. 

Your boss grabbed your wrist and yanked you forward so that you were between him and Kaiba. He was predictably going to use you as a shield. “There was an emergency, but everything was working perfectly when I left!” Dramatically he faced you. “That's the last time I leave you in charge!” He shook his head as he addressed Kaiba. “She's useless really. I ask her to fix something and she screws up the entire code!” 

Kaiba stood and looked down at your boss. Your body was still being used as a human shield, but Kaiba was tall enough that he could easily look right over you. Even though you weren't the focus of that glare you still felt it. It made you want to melt straight into the floor and disappear. 

“You're fired.” 

You double checked that Kaiba wasn't looking at you before slipping out of your boss' now shaking hands. Rather than watch the show, you slid into the seat that Kaiba had just vacated and began fixing some of the bugs that Kaiba had pointed out earlier. Your team was on a strict schedule, and your lead getting fired was only going to delay that schedule. Time would be wasted searching for a new lead programmer as your department slowly devolved into anarchy with nobody in charge. You might as well try to get as much work done as you could. 

Your now-ex-boss was protesting and trying to claim that he was elsewhere doing important work for the game. He even told Kaiba to check with some girl from accounting. As if there was any reason for him to be dealing with the accounting department. 

You tuned his protests out. At this point, it was obvious that he wouldn't be able to save his job. Kaiba was nearly impossible to persuade and your former boss was too rattled to even speak without stuttering. 

Eventually you were pulled out of your debugging by a hand waving in front of your face. You turned to see who was trying to get your attention and found Kaiba angrily staring at you. “Give me your Kaiba Corp. ID,” he demanded before you could say anything. 

“Yes! Okay!” You jumped out of your seat and tried not to run as you retrieved your ID from your purse. You wanted to ask Kaiba why he wanted your ID, you were paranoid that he was about to fire you too, but you knew that questioning him was like sticking a blow-drier in a filled bathtub. 

He took your ID from you, you were pleased to note that your hands were not shaking, and looked down at the picture. “Get this back from my assistant at the end of the day.” That simple remark was the last thing he said before leaving your department. 

You stood in place and stared after him with your mouth hanging open. Well, you probably weren't fired, but you still had no idea why he wanted your ID. The most logical explanation was that he was considering you for the recently vacated Lead Programmer position, but that would be unbelievably amazing, and you didn't want to get your hopes up. Your gaze floated around the room at all your equally shocked coworkers, and you suddenly thought of the animation department. 

Your hand dove back into your purse to quickly pull your phone out. “KAIBA ALERT!” You sent the text to the entire animation department. Hopefully someone would see it before Kaiba was able to reach their floor. 

That quick moment of panic for the animation department helped you process everything that had just occurred. You were ready to get back to work, but a glance at your whispering coworkers told you that you were the only one. 

“Just because Kaiba walked away doesn't mean we can relax. He's visited a department twice in the same day before, and the animation team might send him back.” 

Most of your coworkers had worked at Kaiba Corp. long enough to remember the incident that you were referencing. Half the payroll team lost their jobs that day, and the other half was forced to put in days of overtime after that to make sure that payday was on time. Kaiba might have been responsible for their decimated numbers, but he still expected them to keep their deadlines. 

A few of your coworkers were starting to look worried, which was not what you intended. “We've lost our lead, but so what? He was a useless waste of space.” There were several nods of agreement. “We still have our deadlines, so let's get back to work.” 

The entire programming team got back to work. The incident with payroll was every single Kaiba Corp. employee's nightmare. Nobody could honestly say if they'd rather be fired or part of the team working double time for months. 

You continued making all the adjustments to the first level that Kaiba had pointed out. It was best to do the small things while you still remembered them. After you finished that you would get back to working on the boss battle. You made notes on everything that Kaiba wanted changed in the animation and decided to bring it down to the animation team after you gave Kaiba enough time to terrorize their department. You didn't want to run into him again if you could help it. 

When you tried to drop off your notes with the animation department, you realized that your programming team was actually quite lucky. Upon arrival, you found the head of their department curled up under a table with his thumb in his mouth. You talked to the first person you could find who wasn't hysterical and discovered that Kaiba hadn't held any punches in their department. Nobody was fired, but Kaiba had verbally abused nearly everyone. 

You left your notes in the head animator's box and made a mental note to send him an email to ensure that he knew they were notes directly from Kaiba. 

The day ended at five exactly, much like any other day, but the boss was so teasingly close to completion that you ended up working past five to finish the final function. This wasn't out of the ordinary. It was normal for you to end up staying late in order to finish whatever you happened to be working on. You didn't like to interrupt your thought processes in the middle of anything, and you often didn't have anywhere to go after work. Except today you had to pick up your ID from Kaiba's assistant, and you didn't know when she left the office. So you found yourself leaving your workstation at nearly five-thirty, much earlier than normal. 

In the elevator, you were faced with a Catch-22. In order to get your ID card from Kaiba's office, you needed to swipe your ID in the elevator so that you could get access to Kaiba's office. Of course even if you had your ID, you still might not be able to access Kaiba's office. After hours, only important employees were able to access Kaiba's office and only while he was actually in his office. Your ex-boss could probably reach Kaiba, but your ID didn't have that much power. 

So you were caught. You needed your ID back, but you also needed your ID to get it back. Reluctantly you pressed the button for the lobby and hoped that someone would still be at the front desk. They had visitor IDs, and you could probably use one. 

Thankfully some of the secretaries in the lobby worked until six. You managed to get the attention of one of the women and you explained your situation to her. She called up Kaiba's assistant to confirm your story before giving you a visitor's pass to Kaiba's office. 

“Don't forget to return that before you leave!” she called out as you walked away from her desk. “Otherwise the replacements are docked from your pay!” 

After that you were forced to trek all the way back to the elevators so you could begin the long ride up to the top floor. Very few people were actually using the elevator to go _up_ this time of night, but that didn't stop it from being a long ride. 

Despite your good intentions, it was past six by the time you finally reached Kaiba's office. After all that wasted time, you really hoped you weren't about to find out that you were getting fired. 

Your day was still full of surprises. When you opened the door to the top floor you expected to find Kaiba's assistant, Setsu, sitting at her desk. 

The woman sitting at the desk was not Setsu. 

“Setsu wasn't fired was she?” the words spilled out the moment you saw the new woman. If Setsu was already gone, then you'd totally just lost a lot of money in the betting pool. You'd expected her to stick around for a few more months. 

“Oh no!” The woman smiled. “I'm Mr. Kaiba's evening assistant, and you are?” 

You didn't even know that Kaiba **had** more than one assistant, and you said as much after you introduced yourself. 

“Mr. Kaiba can't have an assistant work for more than twelve hours. Well, he could, I'm sure he wouldn't bat an eye at all that overtime, but they all burn out quickly. Setsu and I work as a team. I work part time and take all the odd hours. Now what can I help you with?” 

“I'm here to pick up my ID.” 

“Oh! Congratulations!” She looked down and picked up a stapled packet of papers before handing them out toward you. 

“For what?” You stepped closer to the desk, trying to get a look at the papers in her hand. 

“Your promotion of course!” 

You froze. “Is this a joke?” There was no way. People didn't get promoted just like that. 

“Mr. Kaiba never jokes.” She pointed to a section of the document. “But I do have to point out that the position is only **temporary** for the moment. Mr. Kaiba can demote you back to a regular programmer anytime he likes.” She turned a page and pointed to another section. “If he does, you'll still receive your increased pay for all the time you spent as a Lead Programmer, but I wouldn't worry about a demotion too much. Temporary fills are usually just a fast way to place you in the new role as all the official paperwork is processed. If you do well, Mr. Kaiba will probably just give you the job permanently.” 

By the end of her detailed explanation of the contract that she expected you to sign, only one fact had actually registered in your mind. “I'm the new lead?” 

“Mr. Kaiba didn't mention--actually I'm not surprised, but yes, in a nutshell. Here's where you need to sign.” 

You looked over the contract, and the moment your eyes landed on the pay increase you did a mental happy dance. “This is amazing!” You looked at the details and signed the contract when nothing raised a red flag. 

You gave the contract back to the assistant and she gave you your ID back. 

You looked down at the ID and corrected yourself. It was a new ID, with your new title on it: Lead Programmer. Just thinking it felt amazing even though your new ID had the same horrible photo that the old ID had. It would have been nice to get a new photo to go with your new position, but you weren't going to complain. 

“Is there anything else I need to do?” you questioned. 

“Not today.” She was typing something into her computer. “We'll let you know when more official paperwork is drawn up. By tomorrow you should have an email with all the details of your new post.” She frowned and lowered her voice. “I'd be careful for the next week. Mr. Kaiba will probably be visiting your department sometime in the next few days to make sure that you're doing the job properly.” 

“Thanks.” You gave her a genuine smile. 

That was one of the nice things about Kaiba Corp. The boss might be a raging asshole but everyone tried to help each other avoid his wrath. Word traveled fast every time that Kaiba decided to prowl the company in a bad mood so he could find people to fire. There were a variety of 'Kaiba Alarms' hidden throughout the company. People had numbers for members of other departments so that they could text them warnings much like you had earlier in the day. There was even a closed Facebook group that posted warnings and notifications on Kaiba's whereabouts as well as his mood. 

The warning system was how your old boss was able to keep his job for so long. He made full use of the system, and today he saw that, while it was useful, it wasn't flawless. 

Well you wouldn't depend on the system. You were going to keep working as hard as you could on that virtual reality game, and you would create Kaiba Corp's best virtual reality game. You would show Kaiba that you deserved to keep this promotion.


	2. Level 1.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I mentioned this last chapter. I have some programming experience. I do know, to a degree, what I'm talking about so this should all be somewhat accurate. However, I've had to do some research into how game development works because I've never worked in the gaming industry. So I could be making some mistakes here and there.
> 
> Monsters featured in this chapter:  
> [Apprentice Magician](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Apprentice_Magician) | [Magicat](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Magicat)

Some people in Kaiba Corp. believed that Seto Kaiba was psychic. He had the creepy ability to always appear when he was least wanted. Were you talking to a friend on Facebook instead of working? Kaiba would materialize right behind you. Perhaps you were singing 'Happy Birthday' to a coworker? Any and all candles would magically go out as Kaiba swept into the room. Did you accidentally set something on fire? Kaiba would be there, ready to beat you over the head with the fire extinguisher before you could call out “FIRE!” and you would be fired on the spot. 

He was just that good. 

So it shouldn't have come to you as a surprise that Kaiba walked in to check on your team while you were unconscious. 

In your defense, you were actually testing his game at the time, unaware that he was about to check in on you. So technically you were doing your job. Or, at least, a part of your job. 

You were sitting in the gloomy fog of the first level, and it felt like you were trapped in some sort of nightmare. The graphics team had gone above and beyond with the fog. 

You twirled your baseball bat experimentally as you waited for an enemy to emerge from the fog. “Do we really need to use something as normal and boring as a bat?” you called out to the intern monitoring you from the real world. Since you couldn't record your thoughts while you were in the virtual world, it was his job to write them all down for you. “Isn't there something from the card game that we can use instead?” 

“You're free to suggest something, but I don't think animation'll like it.” The intern's voice echoed around you, and even though you knew he was just using a microphone to speak directly into the game, hearing a disembodied voice in the fog was creepy. 

He was right of course, even if you could convince the writers to find an alternative, animation would pitch a fit. It wouldn't be too hard for your department to change the code for the bat to accommodate a different close range weapon, but animation would have to completely redraw it anywhere they currently had a bat. It was really the writers' fault. They should have been able to come up with something more interesting than a bat in the first place. “We're going to need people who know Duel Monsters to test this out.” Maybe then animation would believe that people wouldn't be happy with something as ordinary as a bat. 

Then you saw a glow approaching you from inside the fog, and you braced yourself. An Apprentice Magician came barreling out of the fog, ready to strike you with her staff. The moment she was close enough, you swung your bat straight at her ugly-purple-jumpsuit covered stomach. She was such a weak monster that your single attack was all it took to defeat her. She disintegrated almost instantly. 

“Seriously though,” you immediately went back to what you were saying before the battle interrupted you, “nobody on the team knows anything about Duel Monsters. We could be making serious mistakes without even knowing. We'll need to find some players to do beta testing for us.” 

“Kaiba is some sort of champ isn't he?” 

You laughed. Your intern was so silly and idealistic. “Yeah, I'll just ask him to fact check for us. He probably doesn't have anything better to do and he's SO helpful.” You were distracted again as another light appeared in the fog. “When do I get that damn pistol?” 

This time it turned out to be a cute little cat with mismatched eyes. He was carrying a staff in his mouth and you relaxed as you recognized him. He wasn't a monster. 

“Try to hit it.” 

You were completely scandalized by that suggestion. “No way! He's too cute!” You wished that you could glare at whichever coworker had suggested that. 

“We have to check and make sure that players can't accidentally damage the cat. You know that.” 

He was right, and you knew it. The barrier around the AIs did need to be checked. You reluctantly raised your bat again and pulled it back, ready to swing— 

“SHIT!” 

You froze. That did not sound good. “What's wrong?” 

“Mr. Kaiba just walked in. He wants to talk to you.” 

Hearing your coworker swear like that had inspired visions of the game crashing with you still inside. “Well that's not—” You stopped. Comparatively it wasn't that bad, but a visit from Kaiba still wasn't a good thing. “Call exit!” 

The game immediately terminated, sending you back into your own body. You kept your eyes closed as you slowly removed the virtual reality helmet from your head. 

“Are you _insane_?!” Kaiba seemed furious, but you weren't sure why. Then you felt yourself being yanked up from your sitting position. 

“I'm sorry?” You blinked your eyes against the light. Readjusting to the real world always took a moment. 

“Going into the virtual world during testing is dangerous!” he roared as he shook you slightly. “That's why you're supposed to hire testers! Or use people who are disposable! I don't have time to replace yet another lead programmer!” 

That was an odd way to think about it. Your old boss had never gone into the games himself, but you always assumed that was because he was just lazy. “If I don't go in there then I can't check to make sure that everything feels real. Like the pistol! It felt too light this morning, and we had to fix its weight.” 

He still looked furious. “How much testing have you done? What are your safeties?” 

“We've thoroughly tested the code to make sure that nothing will cause it to crash.” You wondered why he was getting so worked up over the matter. It wasn't that dangerous. You gave him a summary of all the functions that would help you force an exit from the program in an emergency. 

He didn't seem impressed. “I don't have time to find another lead if you end up injured.” 

“I guess that means you don't want me to take you into the game to show you how the battle system is working then?” You held up your helmet teasingly. “We have a second one.” Maybe teasing Seto Kaiba was like sticking your hands through the bars of a tiger's cage, but you weren't about to promise to stay out of the game. 

“I have a meeting soon, and I need to thoroughly test your code before I use it.” 

He made it sound like you weren't capable of designing your own code and making it safe for testing. You fought the urge to call him a chicken and changed the subject. “Is there anything else I can help you with Mr. Kaiba?” Surely he had a reason for coming in here. 

“What's the status of the game?” 

“Not much has changed since Tuesday. The battle system has moved completely into testing, but we need to rework our inventory system. Right now the system we have is too unwieldy, and it makes it nearly impossible to use an item during a fight.” You paused and gathered up the courage to make a request. “When the project is near completion, I'd like permission to bring in someone to fact check for us. Nobody on my staff knows Duel Monsters very well. I feel like there could be errors that we aren't catching.” 

“If you aren't capable of doing simple research, you shouldn't be working here.” 

Ouch. Time to backpedal. “We  are doing research, but little details could easily slip through the cracks. It's just a precaution—I don't want to put out a game with any errors.” 

He simply stared at you, and that made you uneasy. He didn't seem as angry as he was a few moments ago, but his moods were prone to frequent and inexplicable changes. You could always hope that his mood would start to change for the best but that was unlikely. 

His gaze snapped away from you to burn holes into a few of your coworkers. Somehow he'd noticed that a few of them had stopped what they were doing to watch your exchange with him. “Get back to work!” he yelled. 

Everyone was clearly frightened. They all began to feverishly work on something, _anything_. Even the people who were working before Kaiba yelled seemed to double their focus. 

Minoru, your intern, was even scared of getting into trouble. Before Kaiba's shout, he was sitting at the computer, waiting for you to finish your conversation with Kaiba. The moment Kaiba ordered everyone to get back to work, he swung his chair around and faced the computer again. 

Earlier you simply had him recording your thoughts and keeping an eye on the system to make sure that nothing weird was going on, so you knew that he didn't really have any work to do at the moment. You wondered if he was actually working at something or simply staring at code in an attempt to look busy. In his shoes you would be trying to isolate the problems that you'd pointed out while in the game, but that was you. He was just a scared little intern. 

“Would you like to hear my ideas about the inventory system?” As the lead it was your job to keep Kaiba from scaring your department. People usually weren't very productive after peeing in their pants. Besides, you wanted to build on a code that Kaiba himself had designed, and you needed permission for that. 

“Is it going to set back the development?” His question was sharp. You knew that he wouldn't be happy if you asked for the deadlines to be pushed back. Kaiba was a stickler for deadlines. 

“Oh no! I just wanted to know if I could adapt some of your code from the Legendary Warriors game?” You absentmindedly wandered over to your desk so you could grab the notes that you'd made about the inventory system. “That game gave out coins using cards instead of actual currency and I was thinking about doing that with our items. Put them on cards that the user can carry around until they need the item. It'll make it easy for a player to carry around a lot of items at one time.” 

“Are you even capable of understanding my code?” 

You were too far into your thoughts to register his insulting tone. “I've never had the chance to look at any of the code for that game. The source code isn't open for most company employees. I think I have a fair idea of how it works... though I might be better off designing my own system from scratch...” 

“I doubt you could come up with anything as efficient. I'll have my assistant send you the files for that game.” He glanced at his watch. “I want the code you're using to test the battle system in my inbox before you leave for the day.” 

“Yes sir!” 

He left, and you could almost feel the tension disappear as everyone let out a sigh of relief. 

You settled back into the testing chair. “Minoru, are you ready to send me back into the game?” 

“What?! Are you sure that's okay? Mr. Kaiba didn't seem to like you testing the game.” 

“If I don't test it, then I can't be sure it works properly. Just send me in.” You put the helmet back over your head, effectively ending the conversation. 

You heard the machine begin to boot up as he turned the system on and you closed your eyes. You still had so much that you wanted to test.   
  


\-----

During your testing, you found a long list of things that you wanted to fix before you sent the code to Kaiba. It was fortunate that he had opted to not enter the game and look around. Some of the errors were such obvious problems that you would have been ashamed to have your boss see them. On top of that, Kaiba was such a thorough tester that you wanted to impress him with your own skills. A few days ago, as you watched him navigate the first level, you had been awed by his brilliance. He tried things that you never would have thought about checking. 

You resolved to fix each and every one of these errors before you sent the code to Kaiba. It was an optimistic goal. Unfortunately, you couldn't force any of your programmers to stay behind and help you after the official work day ended, and none of them wanted to stay. 

Your cute little intern had volunteered to help you, but due to legal restrictions, you were forced to send him home. 

Which was a shame. Kaiba Corp. was creepy after hours. Despite knowing that that there were guards around and that creepers weren't able to get into the building, it was still a little scary to be the only person left on your floor. 

So you nearly screamed in surprise when your phone rang. 

“Hello?” 

“Why don't I have your code in my inbox?” It was Kaiba, and he didn't sound happy with you. 

“I'm sorry sir. I'm still working out some of the bugs we found during testing. I could send you what I have now if you'd like?” You absolutely hated the idea of sending code that you knew was flawed to Kaiba for inspection, but you had to make the offer. 

There was a pause. “It's after six.” 

You didn't think that he was asking you a question. It sounded more like a statement than anything, but you weren't sure how to respond. “It is.” 

“You're still in the building?” 

Okay, that sounded like an actual question. “Yes. I'm working at my desk.” You were proud of yourself for not giving him a sarcastic response. Honestly where else did he expect you to work? But you couldn't ask him that. Sarcasm was a one-way-ticket to the unemployment line. 

Your phone beeped, and you looked down to see that the call had ended. Well you had full signal, so if there was a problem then it was on his end. You went back to work, knowing that he would contact you if he still had more to say. 

Yet you were completely surprised when he stormed onto your floor a few minutes later. You stood, ready to ask him if he needed something, but somehow you ended up simply staring at him in shock. Of course you knew that he worked longer hours than you did and was therefore still in the building, but he never harassed his employees after hours. 

“You already need to work overtime? I'm beginning to doubt that you can handle this project.” He looked around at the room and seemed to be surprised that it was empty. “Why are you the only one still here working?” 

“I don't need to work overtime. We're on schedule.” 

“People don't work overtime for no reason.” 

Well wasn't that the pot calling the kettle black! He was clearly suspicious of you right now, but there was absolutely no reason for that. “I didn't want to send you a code full of errors. We found some errors during testing, and I've been debugging them ever since.” Your work reflected you, and you didn't want Kaiba to see a bad reflection. That was all there was to it. 

“It's guaranteed to have bugs in it.” 

Jerk. “Well I'd still like to get rid of the bugs that I'm already aware of. It saves you time when you're looking at the code, and I know how valuable your time is.” Okay, maybe you were kissing up to him a little, but he was your boss and a little bit of kissing up never went astray. “I'm almost done.” Maybe. As long as fixing one of the remaining problems didn't cause a major issue elsewhere. That happened sometimes. It was always a painful time sap. 

“I want the code in my inbox by seven. No matter what state it happens to be in.” 

It was almost seven so that gave you very little time, but you weren't about to argue with the man. “Ok.” 

Thankfully he left after that, allowing you to get back to work so the code could be in the best shape possible by seven. You worked as quickly as you could and got as much done as possible, but at seven you had to acknowledge that you needed to send him the code. You did a quick test to make sure that it was still operational. Then you sent it to Kaiba before packing up and going home for the day.   
  


\------

Of course Kaiba had a reason for wanting your code but you assumed that he was just looking at your safeties and exit functions. You didn't expect him to send you an email the next day notifying you that he would be by for the testing. 

At least he warned you first. That gave you time to warn everyone else on your floor. 

Of course you assumed that Kaiba would be watching as you did the testing. So you asked your most confident programmer to stand by so that someone could easily answer any of Kaiba's questions. Then you asked Minoru if he would mind going into the game on the off chance that Kaiba threw another fit about you testing it. 

Hopefully it wouldn't come down to that. Minoru was far too nervous to do a decent job. 

Kaiba walked in with another man shortly after the workday began. 

The man stepped forward with his hand outstretched. “Hey, we haven't been introduced yet, but I'm Mokuba!” 

This was even worse than you thought it would be if both the president and vice president were present for the testing. You shook his hand and introduced yourself. 

“Mokuba will be watching over the monitors as I test the game.” 

Your eyes widened. “You're going into the game today Mr. Kaiba?” 

“Are you deaf?” He glared at you, and you bit your tongue to refrain from asking anymore questions. 

You quickly introduced Mokuba to your intern and the programmer that you'd selected to oversee the testing. “He can answer any questions you might have,” you told Mokuba. “Since I'll be going into the game with Mr. Kaiba.” 

That was a terrifying thought. 

As Mokuba got acquainted with your staff, you gave Kaiba one of the virtual helmets. He sat down in the chair that you'd been using yesterday leaving you with the second one. You waited until he had his helmet settled into place before putting your own over your head. You gave your staff a thumbs up and listened to the whirr of the machine as it booted up.


	3. Level 1.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have up to chapter nine completed (and I'm working on chapter ten). I just have to find time to edit them before posting, hence the delays. 
> 
> This is the first chapter with a significant amount of the Virtual World in it. I hope anyone reading this enjoys it!
> 
> Duel Monsters in this chapter:  
> [Magicat](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Magicat)|[Old Vindictive Magician](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Old_Vindictive_Magician)|[Apprentice Magician](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Apprentice_Magician)|[Mystical Elf](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Mystical_Elf)|[Sunny Pixie](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Sunny_Pixie)|[Arcanite Magician](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Arcanite_Magician)|[Sand Gambler](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Sand_Gambler)

_There was once an evil Dark Magician. The Dark Magician wished to become the ruler of a nearby kingdom so he cast a spell and brought forth monsters to serve as his minions. The monsters swarmed the kingdom, spilling out onto the nearby lands, and completely demolishing any form of resistance._

The player(s), as the ruler(s) of the realm, is/are sent to a dark realm by the Dark Magician in an attempt to get the former monarch entirely out of the way.  
  
—Excerpt from the notes sent to the animation department on the opening sequence of the game.  
  
\-----

You found yourself surrounded by the fog distinctive to the first level. Since the animation department wasn't done with the opening scene you ended up just getting dumped into the game without any prompt. The baseball bat that you began with at the start of the game was sitting at your feet without any instruction. This wasn't a problem for you since you knew what you were supposed to do at this point. You looked around to see Kaiba standing nearby with a baseball bat of his own at his feet. 

“You'll need that bat.” You grabbed yours and pointed to his with it. 

“A baseball bat?” He kicked his, and it rolled away from him. “This was the best you could come up with?” 

You shrugged. “I didn't come up with it. I suggested that the writers change it but animation didn't want to redraw anything.” 

He reluctantly took a step toward his and picked it up. He seemed to weigh it carefully in one hand. Then he gripped it and swung once into the empty fog. “The weight feels appropriate.” 

That was almost a compliment. “Thank you, but I wasn't responsible for that. One of my programmers suggested that we weigh real life versions of all our weapons. They should all have accurate weights.” 

He ignored you and began walking through the fog. There weren't any signs indicating which way to go so you didn't know how he chose that direction. Not that he'd picked the right direction. At the beginning of the game there was no right direction, nor was there a wrong direction. The player simply wandered aimlessly through the fog until they fought enough battles to trigger the entrance of the Magicat. 

You followed behind him quietly, not supplying any of this information. You weren't here as a guide. Your only purpose was to explain anything unfinished and to answer any questions he might have. Otherwise you were going to stay silent. 

Then you saw a light in the fog and you knew the first monster was coming your way. The light slowly got closer and closer until you could eventually make out the outline of the monster. It was an Old Vindictive Magician, a weak Spellcaster that looked more like a broken robot than an old man. It hobbled slowly, and the stiff motion of its walk simply made it appear even more robotic. 

“Swing your bat at the enemy to attack,” a mechanical voice explained once the creature was completely in view. 

You could see Kaiba raise an eyebrow before he suddenly ran forward to meet the creature head on. His swing connected with the top of the monster's head. It instantly dissolved into a confetti of pixels. All that was left of the monster was a single glowing bag on the floor. 

“The enemy dropped an item. Pick it up.” The mechanical, disembodied voice was back. 

“Does it do this during every single battle?” Kaiba was clearly irritated by the voice, reminding you that he really had a very short fuse. 

“Just during the first battle. It's information for new players, and we are planning to give the player the option to turn it off.” Of course you could turn it off now, but then you would have to go back and test it later. It was better to suffer through the voice for the first few tests and know that it worked. 

He didn't say anything before he continued walking through the fog. You breathed a sigh of relief before following him. It was for the best that he hadn't said anything and that didn't seem to care about the dropped item. You completely dismantled the item system when you decided that you were going to build a new one. If he'd asked about the item you knew that he would probably have a sarcastic comment when you told him it wouldn't work. 

Kaiba bashed his way through the first few enemies with ease, and you found yourself increasingly impressed by him. The first enemy in the game was an Old Vindictive Magician and those didn't move very quickly. It gave the player the chance to get used to swinging the bat. Then the magicians quickly gave way to Apprentice Magicians, and while those weren't fast, they were still fairly agile. Kaiba hit them so quickly that he made them look just as slow as the old magicians. 

For a man who spent so much time in his office, he was in remarkable shape. Of course his virtual body had nothing to do with his actual body. His speed had more to do with how quickly his mind could react and process things, but he still moved like someone used to physical activity. There was nothing awkward about his motions. 

Finally he triggered the Magicat, and it pranced toward you through the fog. You still couldn't believe how closely it resembled a real cat. The animation team had really done amazing work with him, and his staff was small enough that it almost looked like a tiny stick that he'd just picked up. He was completely adorable. 

Then you realized that Kaiba was swinging his bat. 

“NO!” you cried out, but it was too late. Kaiba had hit the barrier around the cat. 

The Magicat had its mouth open in a quiet hiss and the fur on its back was completely raised, but Kaiba ignored it in favor of glaring at you. 

“Um, that's not an enemy,” you explained sheepishly. “That's our guide out of the fog.” 

“You didn't think that perhaps you might want to make that clear to the player?” 

His abuse was getting old. “Well it will be. There's a little scene before this where a Mystical Elf appears and explains that she's going to send you her pet cat to help you navigate out of the fog.” You almost pointed out that even without the scene, Kaiba should have noticed that there wasn't any battle music playing during the cat's approach, but you decided that would be rude. As you looked at the cat, who was now just sitting in place grooming itself, you wondered how Kaiba could be so quick to attack him. You vocalized your disbelief without even thinking about it. 

“It's not even real.” Kaiba's voice was laced with disdain but that didn't matter to you. He was clearly heartless. 

“That doesn't stop him from being cute.” You knew that you weren't going to win this argument. “Whatever, let's just follow him.” 

The two of you began following the cat, who started walking the moment you tried to approach him. 

“Why isn't the scene in place?” 

“Huh?” Kaiba's question felt like it came out of nowhere for a minute, then you remembered what you were just talking about. “Oh, animation isn't done with it yet.” 

“Is that barrier temporary or permanent?” 

“Permanent. We have them around all our AIs. In theory, it'll keep the player from attacking them.” You glanced over at him to gauge his reaction, but his face was nearly impossible for you to read. 

“Do all the AIs have reactions when attacked?” 

Apparently it was rapid-fire question time. “No. Only the important ones.” 

Eventually the fog gave way to a bright meadow full of long, lush grass. There was a large pond near the opposite edge of the meadow and its water sparkled in the sun above. The meadow was lined with trees, and beyond the trees, instead of a forest, there was simply fog. The clearing was simply a bubble of space carved out of the all-encompassing fog. 

Stepping into the meadow caused the Mystical Elf to appear at the edge of the pond. The Magicat ran up to her and jumped onto her shoulders. It draped itself around her neck. She pet its head and her lips began moving, but otherwise nothing happened. Kaiba looked at you expectantly. 

“She's explaining how you got stuck in this world. Then she's going to explain what you need to do to get out. We're going to have to travel through the fog to a bunch of different little dimensions within this world and defeat the monsters there. Then she'll be able to transport us out. In theory.” It was a basic summary of the first level without any of the actual plot. Not that you expected him to actually care about the plot. He probably had a summary on his desk or in his email or something. You knew that somewhere he could read the summary of the plot if he cared. 

Suddenly the Mystical Elf looked horrified as a swarm of pink haired pixies descended on her. They had giant red eyes and fangs for teeth. If the game had sound effects, they would be cackling. In moments like this, not having any sounds recorded for the game yet was a little distracting. 

As the pixies started to pull the elf's hair, you remembered what you were supposed to do. “We're supposed to save her!” You ran into the cloud of pixies and began swinging your bat at them. 

There were a lot of pixies, but it only took one good whack for them to explode into pixels. Kaiba joined the fray and you found yourself a little bit distracted by watching him whack pixies with pink hair. You hoped that someone was recording the game right now. Seto Kaiba swinging at pixies with a bat was an image that needed to be on YouTube. 

Then again, he might kill you for doing that, so perhaps you should just hold a viewing party for Kaiba Corp. employees. 

A sharp tug on your hair brought you back to the game and the pixies that were now pulling **your** hair. One bit your shoulder, and it was the first to die as you went back to attacking the swarm. 

The pixies cleared and suddenly a pistol was floating in front of you. Your bat disappeared, and you grabbed the floating pistol. “FINALLY!” 

You turned to make sure that Kaiba was doing okay, only to see him aiming his pistol with a practiced arm. “You know how to use a gun!” you blurted out before you could stop yourself. That was unexpected. In order to get ready for this game, you actually spent a majority of your weekends at shooting ranges. You figured that you might have to show Kaiba how to use the pistol properly, but no, he already knew how to handle a weapon. 

Then he pulled the trigger, and your eyes got progressively wider as you followed the path of the bullet. It was heading straight for the Mystical Elf's head but fortunately, it was stopped by the AI barrier. 

Jaw on the floor you stared back at Kaiba. “She's not an enemy!” 

“I'm aware of this.” 

He was acting like he was clearly superior to you despite pointlessly trying to shoot an AI. His arrogance really knew no bounds. 

“Why would you try to shoot her then?” 

He looked down at you like you were a mere mortal that shouldn't dare question him. “I was testing your program.” There was an implied _obviously_ on the end there. He didn't say it, but you could hear it in his disdainful tone. 

The Magicat was sitting at your feet again, and you realized that you'd just missed an entire scene. Oh well, it wasn't like there was any sound. 

“Time to continue our quest.” You smiled at Kaiba only to receive a glare in response. Right, he wouldn't know fun if it dressed up as a pixie and bit him. You followed the Magicat, expecting Kaiba to be right behind you. Apparently he didn't like following. It only took him a few quick strides before he was walking ahead of you again. 

The two of you and your bright kitty guide ventured back into the fog where an Old Vindictive Magician was waiting for you. 

“Say 'bat' to switch to your 'baseball bat'.” 

“We don't have voice actors yet,” you reminded Kaiba before he could complain about how he thought the robotic voice was irritating. “Bat.” Your pistol dissolved only to be replaced by the baseball bat. 

“Say 'bat' to switch to your 'baseball bat'.” 

You glared at Kaiba, who was stubbornly just shooting at the magician. “It'll just keep repeating that until you switch weapons.” 

“Bat,” he snarled, making it sound like a swear word. The moment his baseball bat appeared he grabbed it and furiously bashed the magician over the head. 

“Say 'pistol' to switch back to your 'pistol'.” 

“Pistol!” 

You backed away from Kaiba. He was a little bit scary at the moment and armed with a gun. Your team had yet to get around to designing the two player system so you weren't sure what would happen if he tried to shoot you, and you didn't want to find out. 

“Say 'pistol'—” 

“OH SHIT! PISTOL!” That was your fault. You had yet to switch and the glare that Kaiba was currently sending your way said that he would love to shoot you at the moment. You sheepishly grabbed your pistol. “At least it won't repeat that again until we get the machine gun?” 

He just turned away from you and stalked after the cat. As you trailed behind him, you kept your distance. If he suddenly decided that he wanted to shoot you, well, you wanted to be far enough away that you would have time to react. 

In the distance, you could see a large glowing object. Normally you would simply stand in place with your pistol ready, waiting for it to come into range, but Kaiba walked toward it. So you reluctantly followed him. Once you could see the enemy, an Arcanite Magician covered in a glowing blue robe, you moved into the stance you'd been taught at the shooting range. Kaiba was already shooting at the enemy, but he didn't know where its weakness was located. 

Since he had the magician distracted, you took your time aiming for its staff. You weren't as deft with a gun as Kaiba was, and even though you practiced on weekends, your aim still needed work. Your first shot missed the target completely and had the negative side effect of gaining its attention. 

The magician sent a spell your way. You quickly crouched down so it would fly over your head. From your crouched position, you aimed at the magician's staff again, and this time you were able to hit it. The magician roared as the glowing sphere at the top of its staff cracked and fell off. 

In a rage, it rushed at you. You stood up. “Bat.” Your gun switched out for the bat, but your switch to a melee weapon turned out to be useless. While it was trying to rush you, Kaiba took it out with a well placed hit to the head. 

“Nice teamwork!” You held up a hand for a high five. 

“That was **not** teamwork,” he snapped. 

“What?” You let your hand fall back to your side. You were confused. “I took out its magic and you finished it off. What is that if it isn't teamwork?” 

“You made a stupid mistake and turned into a target. I took advantage of the enemy's distraction to defeat it. Pistol!” He switched back to the pistol and seemed to consider it for a moment. “How am I supposed to reload this?” 

You winced, knowing he probably wasn't going to like the answer. “For the moment all the weapons have a never ending supply of ammunition. Since I need to rework the inventory system, we decided to just comment out the ammunition.” 

“You don't seem to have very much complete.” He began walking again, probably not expecting a response. 

Your eyes narrowed at him. “You know as well as I do, Mr. Kaiba, that it's better to test parts of the game individually when possible so that when there's a problem it's easy to isolate.” 

He didn't say anything, and there was no indication that he even heard what you said, but you knew he had excellent hearing. He was known to hear insults muttered anywhere on the same floor. 

Eventually the Magicat led you out of the fog again and straight into a simple clearing. It was a small circle with only a house but you excitedly fist pumped. 

“The Sand Gambler's clearing finally triggered!” you called out. “Remind me to make sure that I can get back to it later.” 

Kaiba was clearly questioning your intelligence at this point but that didn't matter. Last time you tested this game, you couldn't get the Sand Gambler to appear. For whatever reason, it wasn't triggering. So you were relieved that the bug was now fixed. 

“Got it!” said the disembodied voice of Minoru. 

“Now let's see if he'll actually appear.” Caught up in your own testing, you completely forgot about Kaiba as you walked toward the house. The door suddenly swung open and the Sand Gambler emerged. He was wearing a pair of slacks, a button up shirt, and a vest. As he leaned against the door his lips moved with empty words before his mouth settled into a roguish grin. 

A box with his dialogue floated above his head. “Would you care to gamble a bit?” 

“Why does he have a dialogue box when the Mystical Elf didn't?” 

“Just to—” You clamped your jaw shut. You were about to say, “Just to mess with you,” but that wasn't something you should say to your boss. “He's interactive. We need to know what dialogue options he's using. The elf wasn't. Watch.” You turned to the Sand Gambler. “No thanks.” 

“Are you sure? If you get three heads in a row you win an amazing weapon.” He winked at you. 

“Yeah, I'm sure.” 

“Are you sure? If you get three heads in a row you win an amazing weapon.” The exact same dialogue bubble appeared over his head and he winked again. 

“That's not supposed to happen. Minoru, note that the Sand Gambler's dialogue isn't working.” You frowned. This stupid monster was giving you far too much trouble. You were going to look up whoever did the code for this clearing and yell at them later. “Yes. Let's gamble,” you tried, to see if that would solve the problem. 

The exact same dialogue appeared again. 

“ARG!" you shouted in frustration. "So when told no the first time it repeats the offer and gets stuck in a loop. Minoru are you there?” 

“Yes.” 

“Ask Tadashi to look at the code for this clearing and debug the entire thing. Tell him I want a list of all the bugs that he fixes.” 

“Got it!” 

“Was Tadashi the original programmer?” Kaiba's sharp question reminded you that he was still present. You'd completely forgotten about him. 

“No. I can't actually recall who did this section, but it wasn't Tadashi. He worked on the battle system with me. He's very good.” 

Kaiba nodded and you were relieved that he seemed to approve of your decision. 

“We might as well leave this area since we know it's buggy.” 

You were relieved when he didn't say anything rude in response. 

"Continue," you told the cat, letting it know where to take you. 

The two of you followed the cat back into the fog and a few battles later you emerged again. This time you walked into a space that looked like a cavern. There were jewels all over the floor and a lamp sitting on a pedestal in the center of the room. You opened your mouth to inform Kaiba that this was the first major battle but decided against that. He didn't like receiving answers for questions that he never asked. 

He was fearless, stepping into the room with very little concern despite not knowing what was about to happen. You knew exactly how the room was designed, and you still wanted to edge forward slowly. Sure it was only a virtual reality, but that didn't mean you wanted to get hurt. 

Once both of you made it into the room, the opening behind you magically turned into a cave wall. You were surrounded by walls on all sides now, and you wouldn't be able to leave until you defeated the monster.


	4. Level 1.4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The site that I post most of my work on is currently down. I guess that gives me time to edit this chapter and work on the tenth chapter. (Yeah, I have up to chapter nine finished already. I just need to edit them.)
> 
> Duel Monsters featured in this chapter:  
> [La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/La_Jinn_the_Mystical_Genie_of_the_Lamp)|[Ancient Lamp](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Ancient_Lamp)|[Boo Koo](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Boo_Koo)|[Gemini Elf](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gemini_Elf)

The lamp in the center of the room stood on four golden legs, ruining the illusion that it was just part of the scenery. Its eyes opened. They focused on Kaiba and seemed to be glaring at him. Green smoke started to puff out of the lamp. As the smoke slowly rose up, it began to take the shape of a giant, green genie. The genie roared and reached out a hand in an attempt to whack both you and Kaiba. While the genie was still forming, you'd positioned yourself next to a pile of coins and items. Now you ducked behind that pile, using it as a barrier.

Unlike you, Kaiba wasn't expecting the attack. Even his lightning-fast reflexes couldn't save him from a hand twice the size of his body. You winced as he was knocked back and hoped that you weren't about to get fired for not warning him.

Luckily, he didn't seem to be bothered by getting hit. He simply backed away, out of the genie's range, and started shooting the genie in the head. Or rather, he _tried_ to shoot the genie in the head. His bullets all went straight through the genie. Which was exactly what was supposed to happen. The genie wasn't the real target, and he was impossible to damage.

You shuffled around the edge of the cavern, trying to find a better angle, and wondered how long it would take Kaiba to figure out the trick to the battle.

“BAT!”

Well he was already attempting a weapon switch. Then there was a flash of light as the genie began firing spells at Kaiba. You looked over the top of the pile that you were currently hiding behind and watched as Kaiba blocked a bolt of lightning with his bat. That was... an incredibly smart move, actually. The bat was programmed to be a solid object, and it wasn't designed to break, so it did make a decent shield for someone like Kaiba who had the reflexes to make it work. You had a feeling that Kaiba figured all of that out before using the bat as a shield, and you couldn't help but be impressed by him.

Then a stray bolt of lightning flew your way. The battle was still going on, and Kaiba had yet to figure out the trick to it. You refocused on creeping around the room until you were behind the genie and lamp. The lamp was your actual target, and the only real monster in the room. The moment it was defeated, the genie would disappear.

Kaiba seemed to be getting frustrated, which was a clear signal that you should probably enter the fray. You raised your pistol and aimed for one of the lamp's eyes. You fired—BANG—and while you did hit the lamp, you completely missed its eye.

The lamp's eyes swirled around to look in your direction, and you instantly had the attention of the genie. A bolt of lightning flew your way. You ducked down behind your pile of treasure. The lightning took off the tip of the pile, and coins rained down onto you.

You heard another gun fire and assumed that Kaiba had caught onto the trick for the battle. You peeked out from the side of the pile and, as the genie's attention refocused on Kaiba, fired at the lamp again.

Between the two of you, destroying the lamp took almost no time at all. As the lamp cracked, and pieces of it tumbled to the floor, electricity began running along the genie's body. The moment the lamp fell apart, the genie disappeared in a giant flash of light.

Two treasure chests appeared in the center of the room, near the broken shards of the lamp.

You grinned at Kaiba as you walked over to a chest and pushed it open. “What did you think of the battle?”

Kaiba ignored your question in favor of watching as you removed a machine gun from one of the chests. Your pistol disappeared, and you picked up the machine gun. It would be useful for some of the battles on this level, but it was heavier than the pistol. Carrying around the machine gun the entire time would probably tire you out.

“Pistol.” The machine gun disappeared and your pistol reappeared again. You simply weren't strong enough to cart around a machine gun, switching to it when you needed it would be easier.

Kaiba didn't have any problems with his machine gun. He decided to randomly shoot a pile of gold, and you had to refrain from ducking. He was a scary man when he was armed.

On the plus side, he seemed pleased by the way the coins fell to the ground.

Now that you had your machine guns, the Magicat reappeared. You were done with this section.

“Time to go back into the fog,” you announced.

Kaiba ignored you and walked straight over to the cat. “Why isn't it moving?” he demanded the moment he reached it.

“You need to tell it where to go.” You joined him. “We can go back to the field or continue the plot.”

“We'll keep going.”

“Continue on,” you told the cat. You would have expected him to want to test the cat by asking it to take you to various locations, but perhaps he just wanted to get a feel for the battles. You wondered how long he would play until he was satisfied with your work. He always needed to test things thoroughly before he was satisfied that they worked properly, but at the same time, he was a busy man with very little time to spend in the virtual world. By now, at least an hour would have gone by in the real world.

The moment the two of you entered the fog you were swarmed by Boo Koos. They were small, walking books that meandered around in a swarm. Occasionally a page would glow and cast a spell, but they had a poor range. It was easy to dispose of them with a machine gun.

“Seto?” You didn't recognize the voice interrupting your game, but you assumed that it was Kaiba's brother. “It's almost time for your meeting.”

Kaiba cursed under his breath. “End the game.”

“It's actually easier at the moment for Minoru to do that,” you informed Kaiba. “You there Minoru?”

“Yes! Got it!”

You watched yourself dissolve for a moment before you found yourself staring at the inside of your helmet. You carefully removed the helmet, quickly exposing your eyes to bright light often made you wince, so you always gave yourself time to adjust. You placed the helmet to the side and ran a hand over your hair. It felt like a frizzy mess. Fortunately, you had a hair tie in your purse.

By the time you readjusted to the light of the room, Kaiba was already up and inspecting you. “I'll be back for more testing.” Predictably, he left out _when_ he would be back. “You're getting too used to the virtual world. Spend less time in it.” Then he was gone.

You didn't waste any time trying to figure out what he meant by his comment. A lot of testing still needed to be done. The shotgun had to be tested, and the Sand Gambler's clearing needed serious debugging. You would have to get a look at the code for the clearing and figure out who botched it up. On top of that, you still needed to rework the inventory system.

So much to do and so little time. You would probably be staying overtime again.

\-----

You were stuck in a dense fog, and it felt like something was tugging your hair. You tried to hit whatever was yanking your hair, but you couldn't see it, and you kept missing. Then you felt something biting your arm. It wasn't very large; the bites felt like being stabbed with pins. You tried to slap it but simply ended up hitting your own arm.

A high pitched giggle echoed through the fog before you found yourself surrounded by those stupid pixies. There were so many of them that it should have been easy to hit a few of them, but no matter how much you swung your arms and fists, you seemed to only hit air.

It felt like something large rammed your side. You fell to the ground and woke up to find yourself on your bedroom floor with a blanket hopelessly tangled around your legs. You untangled yourself before getting back into bed.

The dream didn't bother you. You had game related dreams while you were testing the last game too. Those dreams had been toward the end of the game's development, but you figured that was because you had been less involved with that game.

Besides, pixies weren't very scary. They barely qualified as nightmare material.

\-----

The next day, despite falling out of your bed during the night, you were ready to go back into the game and do more testing. First, you were going to check the code for the Time Wizard. It was a random monster that you had yet to encounter. The Time Wizard wasn't supposed to be that uncommon, and you had a feeling that the guy who did the code for that buggy clearing also did the missing Time Wizard. You didn't want to fire the guy, but it was becoming difficult to keep him.

Hopefully fixing the Time Wizard wouldn't take too long. After that, you needed to test the inventory system that you threw together yesterday. It took all afternoon, and some of the evening, but you managed to turn all the items into cards. Now you just needed to get animation to design the cards. For the moment, you were making do with a plain white rectangle that had the item's name written on it. You also still needed to design the function that would turn the cards back to items when the player wanted to use them, but you could at least test the cards.

Kaiba ruined your plans for the day by calling you up to his office.

“Mr. Kaiba, you wanted to see me?” You were slightly annoyed. Kaiba never bothered your last boss this much. Was he harassing you simply because you were new?

“I've hired a game tester for you.”

“Excuse me?” You told yourself not to shoot Kaiba before remembering that you didn't actually have a gun.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. “He'll be downstairs waiting for you. I only hired him for the next three days and I expect you to use him. You're dismissed.” He went back to his paperwork.

You fought back the urge to argue. It would do more harm than good. People who argued with Kaiba were always fired. So you quietly left his office and closed the door firmly behind you.

You eyed his secretary. “I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me Mr. Kaiba's schedule for the next few days?” You didn't actually expect her to say yes, but it was worth asking.

“You know I can't tell anyone that information.” She didn't look surprised. She probably even knew the reasons behind your request.

“Not even when a few of his meetings are?” you beseeched. “I just need a few hours to do my own testing.”

“Sorry. Even if I did give it to you, it wouldn't be very helpful. He sometimes ignores meetings that he deems unimportant.”

“But you could tell me about a few meetings that he'll be in for sure, couldn't you?” You really just needed a few hours. Just a few.

Then the intercom beeped. “Both of you get back to work.”

“How does he do that?!” That man could be so creepy.

The secretary shrugged, but you didn't notice. You'd already walked over to the elevator and pressed the down button. Time for you to meet your new tester.

He turned out to be decent for someone who was shoved at you by your boss. He could give you details on how things felt in the game, and he wasn't a half bad player. He also had a few interesting ideas.

That didn't stop him from being more trouble than he was worth. Having to constantly sit there and tell him the proper commands to say was irritating. Sometimes he didn't even listen to you when you asked him to do something.

Plus the guy tried to cop a feel from the Mystical Elf. Pervert. You yelled and ranted at him for a while for that one. Then he had the audacity to complain that she didn't feel 'real' enough, which inspired a new rant and more swearing.

When you regained your composure a second time, you forced him out of the game so you could hunt Kaiba down and demand that your tester be fired. By then, you were too annoyed to care that Kaiba had his own work.

“He GROPED the elf! Who DOES that?!” Surely Kaiba would be on your side.

Kaiba wasn't phased by that information. “I'm sure plenty of prepubescent boys will try that the moment the game is released.”

You glowered. He had a point. You hated it, but he was right. Stupid Kaiba. The moment you got back to your office you would put a barrier around the elf. Attempts to grope her would be met with electrocution. “I don't like him.”

“Get over it, or I'll replace you someone who can work with a team.”

You **had** a team, one you worked with perfectly, but you knew that you wouldn't be winning this battle. “I want to pick any future testers.”

“Get back to work!” Kaiba snapped.

You nearly jumped out of your skin. Kaiba seemed ready to fire you. Apparently he was done talking to you. It was time to retreat back to your department.

The entire elevator ride back down was spent planning. Kaiba never told you that you couldn't test the game yourself. He specifically said that you had to use your tester. There was a loophole there. Perhaps it was time to finish the two player system? Testing that would require someone other than your new tester to go into that game. Someone like you.

The moment you got back to your department, you began to reassign jobs. The people you had doing debugging were left alone, but anyone else was assigned to getting the multiplayer running. Then you adjusted the barrier around the AIs so that players couldn't actually touch them.

Stupid perverted tester.

“Minoru, can you oversee the testing for today?” You pointed out the most recent version of the game to Minoru before shoving a helmet at your tester. You wanted to throw it at his head, but those helmets were expensive.

Minoru's eyes shifted from you to the tester. “I think so. You're not going to be here?”

“I'll be right over there at my desk Minoru. You'll be fine.” The damn tester was spinning his helmet in one hand. You grabbed it from him, pushed him down onto a chair, and forcibly shoved the helmet onto his head. You held it down while you ordered Minoru to turn the system on. Minoru hit the on button, and Mr. Annoying was instantly knocked out. Probably not an appropriate way to use the machine but useful. Then you went over to the computers and began setting up where you wanted to put him in the game. “Have him die today. A lot. Test the damage system. If he won't die willingly, stick him in difficult battles. He's not very good. Record it for me so I can watch it later. As a second pair of eyes of course.”

Minoru smiled. “Of course.”

“Okay, have fun. I'll be right over there at my desk if you have any problems.” You started the game and gave Minoru the microphone. It was time to get that multiplayer up and running.

It took a majority of your team the rest of the day, and you stayed overtime to run the safety tests, but the multiplayer was operational by the next day.

Mr. Annoying Tester was late, of course, but that gave you extra time to talk about the day's testing with Minoru. One of the mini boss battles on the first level changed depending on how many players there were. Gemini Elves replaced the Dark Magician Girl when there were two or more players. Now that the multiplayer was working, you would be able to test that battle.

An arm was draped around your shoulders. “Hey baby.”

You shoved the tester away. This was entirely Kaiba's fault. You hoped his next personal assistant was a crazy fangirl. It would serve him right. “You're late.”

“Don't be mad. I bought coffee for you. Waiting in line took forever.”

You looked at the cup of coffee in his hand. “That's the free coffee from the staff room.”

“What? No way. I totally bought this.”

He was full of bullshit. You didn't just know what the cups that were in the staff room looked like, you knew exactly what the coffee smelled like. You didn't work overtime running on air. “Just sit down and shut up. You'll be going into the game with me today. If you don't listen to me, I **will** shoot you.”

He gulped. “Can you do that?”

You just smiled at him. “Put your helmet on.”

He put the helmet on and stayed quiet while you set up an access point with Minoru. Both of you agreed that entering the game in the Mystical Elf's clearing right before the second major battle would be the best bet. Since the second battle was the one that changed during multiplayer mode, you could test the two player battle system and that battle at the same time.

You settled into the first chair, the comfortable one that Kaiba used, and put your helmet on. You gave Minoru a thumb's up. Then the whirring of the machine announced that you were heading into the virtual world.

A moment later you were back in the clearing. You took a deep breath of air, and it occurred to you that there weren't any _smells_ in the virtual world. “Hey Minoru?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think we could assign smells to certain areas? I bet it would be a nice finishing touch.” As far as you knew, none of the previous virtual realities had smells. It might be that one little detail that finally helped the game feel real.

“I... you're asking me?”

Interns could be so skittish. “Just make a note of the idea for me.”

“Got it.”

“You ready to play?”

You turned to look at your 'teammate'. You'd almost forgotten about the annoying tester. Actually, you still couldn't remember his name... well, it wasn't important. “Pistol.” The pistol appeared in front of you and you noticed that the guy already had a machine gun in his hands. At least he was capable of remembering the basic commands.

The Mystical Elf stood at the edge of the pond. She was simply there in case the player needed a reminder of what they should be doing. You didn't need to talk to her at all but looking at her gave you an idea. “Did you... _touch,_ her again yesterday?”

“What're you gonna do if I say yes? Lecture me again?”

 _Don't shoot him. Don't shoot him._ “You complained about how she felt. Mr. Kaiba ordered me to fix it. I need to know if I fixed the problem or not.”

“Way to go Kaiba!” The guy guffawed. “I'd be glad to touch her again.”

You didn't hide your disgust, but it didn't bother him. He strode over to the Mystical Elf. Then, before he could get too close, the barrier activated and sent him flying with an electric jolt. You couldn't stop yourself from laughing at his shocked expression as he landed on his ass.

“What the hell was that?!” he demanded.

You weren't phased by his anger. Kaiba was scarier, and you had a gun. “My anti-pervert force field. Thanks for testing it for me.” Then you turned to the Magicat. “Continue on.” It was time to get back to the game.

The pervert sullenly refused to cooperate with you as the two of you traveled through the fog. Monsters attacked both of you, but he refused to do anything unless they got too close to him. It was mostly just you against the monsters. At first you didn't care, but since the game was in two player mode, there were more monsters than normal. Fighting them all was tiring, and by the time both of you entered a new clearing, you were actually **hoping** that he would help you out.

This clearing was full of dirt and rocks. In the center, there were ruins of what seemed like it was once a tower. Now it was just a circle made of decrepit stone walls. The height of the walls varied, the stone obviously crumbling more in some places, and there were openings at random intervals. It was time to face the Gemini Elves.

“Get ready,” you warned. “This is a team battle. You have to fight.” You compulsively checked to make sure that you still had ammo in your gun even though ammunition was still set to automatically reload.

Then the blonde elf emerged from the ruins. She was openly glaring at both of you and lightning flashed over her head as a warning. You pointed your gun in her direction and fired. It didn't matter if you missed or not. She disappeared the moment you fired, just like she was programmed to do.

Then she reappeared with her sister near another opening. They both walked out, and the red-haired elf conjured a sharp fragment of ice to send flying at you. You tried to dive out of the way but realized that your body wasn't listening to you. You looked down and discovered that your body was in the process of pixelating. Your legs were already gone, and your torso was disappearing.

Then everything went black. You opened your eyes, or you tried to, but they were already open. You reached for your eyes with your hands, and your hands hit something hard. You realized you were wearing your virtual helmet. You were back in reality. Something must have happened in the game. You yanked your helmet off, ready to demand answers for the quick exit and worried that something had gone terribly wrong.

The words died. Your mind went blank. Seto Kaiba was standing at the computer, and he looked murderous.  


	5. Level 1.5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone is really waiting on chapters for this. If so, terribly sorry it takes me so long. 
> 
> Um, if you'd like to read the story (as far as I currently have it completed) I actually do the bulk of my posting on an entirely different site. This is actually kind of like a backup area for me. Anyway, you can find the story here: <http://lunaescence.com/fics/viewstory.php?sid=27930>
> 
> Additionally, I wrote a pseudo-psychological post on how virtual reality interacts with the brain. [Check it out here if you're curious.](http://dragon-silk.livejournal.com/4277.html)
> 
> Enjoy~

Faced with Kaiba's wrath, you reflexively held up your gun as a form of defense. Your empty hands reminded you that you were in reality. There was no gun. You quickly dropped your hands to your side, but you weren't quick enough, and Kaiba noticed your actions. His eyes narrowed at your hands. He knew what you just attempted.

“This is why I told you not to go into the game!” He was completely furious, but at least he wasn't firing you. Yet.

“You just ejected me from the game without warning. I'm going to need a moment to adjust. You _know_ that.” There were more warnings about suddenly ejecting someone from a virtual reality than you could count. At best, it took the player a few moments to fully transition from the virtual world to the real world, but in the worst case, a player could go into shock. Kaiba knew that. He had developed all of the virtual technology. He knew more about the safety procedures than you did. He shouldn't have just kicked you out of the game without warning.

“How many virtual reality games have you worked on?” He didn't seem pacified, but at least he wasn't yelling at you.

“This will be my third.”

He snapped. “Then you should know better! You're spending far too many hours in that game!” His voice abruptly lowered. “Next time I see you in that game, I **will** fire you.”

He stormed out, and despite your irritation, you were glad that he was gone. An angry Kaiba was a liability. When Kaiba was angry, he fired people simply for breathing too loud.

“Man that guy has a stick up his ass.”

You glared at your tester. Sure you might secretly agree with him, but he didn't have to just announce that to the entire department. It was unprofessional. 

Yeah, you just disliked the guy, even more than you disliked Kaiba at the moment.

Then it dawned on you, Kaiba was angry, and he was on the loose. You may have just ruined the day for everyone in the building. “Could somebody do me a favor and issue an alert? I think Kaiba might be looking for people to fire right now.”

One of your coworkers pulled out her phone while another got on Facebook. The news would reach everyone in the building within minutes.

Now that warning the building was out of the way, it was time for you to figure out what to do about testing the game. Kaiba didn't throw around empty threats. If he said he would fire you, then he would fire you. You couldn't afford to go back into the game.

_Except you had to defeat the Gemini Elves! If you didn't get them out of the way, the Mystic Elf—_

NO! That wasn't your real goal. You needed to complete the inventory system and implement it. Your team also had levels and levels of code left to write. You had no time to get distracted by trying to beat the game.

“Okay everyone, we're going to put a freeze on testing, for the moment. Who's fixing bugs?” Two of your coworkers raised their hands. Then Tadashi raised his hand, looking like he had something to say. “Yes?” you asked.

“I looked at the Time Wizard like you asked. It's a mess. Do you want me to recode it? I'd have to do it almost from scratch.”

“That bad?” He nodded. That wasn't good news. “No. Just remove it. We need to move forward, and I want you working with me.” You glanced around the room trying to think of what else needed to be done. “How is the third level coming along?”

“The major battles are complete,” volunteered one of your programmers.

“Alright, keep working on that.” You took a mental count of how many people currently had tasks. “Who isn't working on fixing errors or building the third level?”

You split the remaining workers into teams. Some of them you put to work writing parts of the code for the inventory system. Others you gave to Tadashi to help him design the system for ammunition. If you could get the items and ammunition working, the levels would be the last things left to code. Of course the animated scenes also needed to be integrated, but you couldn't do anything about those until animation actually finished them.

Speaking of animation, you hadn't heard from anyone in that department lately. Surely they would have more of the scenes done by now? You picked out a junior team member and sent him up to animation to ask about their status. He wasn't gone for very long before he came running back, looking like something was chasing him.

“What happened?” you asked.

“You should probably go up there yourself.” He was clearly uncomfortable saying that to you. It must be serious if he thought that you should be the one to handle it.

“Is something going on up there?”

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Well, they're all working like crazy, and I mean **really** crazy, and nobody will talk to me.”

There was only one thing that could send an entire department into a frenzied state. “I guess that means Mr. Kaiba already paid them a visit.” You checked the time. “Don't worry about it. Lunch is in an hour. I'll go see animation then. Maybe this means they'll actually have some work done.”

When you visited animation during lunch you discovered that they had every single scene from the first level complete. You tried to ask them how they managed to pull _that_ off so quickly but nobody seemed able to answer. Perhaps it was cruel, but you were secretly pleased that Kaiba had terrorized them. Having the scenes for the first level made your job much easier. After lunch was over you would be able to review the scenes and have them implemented. 

Then they would need testing. Except right now you weren't allowed to test the opening scene. At least not without clearance from Kaiba. You decided to send him a casual memo and let him know about the completed sequences. If you were lucky, he would ask you to test them properly.

Instead of sending you back a response, he came down to your department in person. His mood seemed better and you hoped that he really was less angry. He didn't have to be yelling at people for your department to be on edge around him.

You wondered if he knew that productivity went down while he was present. Sure people worked harder, but they were so nervous that they almost always made a bunch of mistakes. Then they had to spend more time debugging their work.

“Hello Mr. Kaiba,” you greeted. It was best to be pleasant with him, which was why you normally stood and gave him your complete attention. Except for right now. You were in the middle of altering part of the code, and if you stopped, you might not be able to remember your train of thought. “Can I—oh I need to include this... erm, did you need—OH! This has to be deleted.” A cough reminded you of the CEO behind you before your thoughts could stray further from him. “Anything you need Mr. Kaiba?”

“The animation is complete?”

His shadow fell over your computer. You reflexively glanced back at him before going back to your work. “Yes. Tadashi should be including them in the game right now.” You deleted a chunk of code. “How is it going Tadashi?” you called out.

“Almost complete.”

“Good. I think I've got everything figured out here too.”

“What are you working on?” Kaiba was still behind you, and you had the feeling that he was trying to look at your work.

“I'm finalizing the inventory system and figuring out how it's going to work with the ammunition. After he's done with the cut scenes, Tadashi will be able to move on to the inventory system.”

“Did you end up using my code?” You wondered if Kaiba had a smug expression on his face. It sounded like he expected the answer to be no.

“Yes.” You didn't bother hiding your pride. “I cut out a lot of it, but it was a useful base.”

You glanced back at him. Kaiba appeared to still doubt that you could actually use his code as a base. Well he would be surprised when he saw the final version of your inventory system. You understood why he didn't think anyone could use it. His code was convoluted and hard to read, perhaps intentionally, but you treated it like a giant puzzle. The moment you received it, it became your nightly activity to play with it until you figured it out.

You reached the end of your current trail of thoughts and saved your work. Kaiba's reasons for coming down to your department probably didn't involve talking about your current work. He probably wanted to see the cut scenes. You turned and finally faced him. “Would you like to see the scenes that animation sent us?” 

“Yes.”

“Give me a moment.” You searched through the company's shared files for the scenes. “Tadashi, is it going to affect your work if I use these?”

“The cut scene files?” Tadashi guessed. “It should be fine. I've made copies to work from.”

That was a good idea. You made your own copies and put them into a playlist. Then you stood. “Would you like a seat?” you offered.

Kaiba was never one for chivalry and sat in your seat. As he settled down, you began the scenes. Your initial instinct was to hover behind him, but you watched the scenes earlier and had no reason to watch them again. Instead, you walked around your department and checked on everyone.

You briefly talked with Tadashi and asked him about his progress. Knowing Kaiba, he would probably ask you when the scenes would be fully coded into the first level. His presence in your department probably meant that he wanted to test the scenes himself.

The sound of your chair being pushed back brought your attention to Kaiba. “Done watching?”

“No, I just thought I would get some popcorn.”

Sarcastic jerk. “I hope the scenes were to your satisfaction?” You really did. If animation had to redo them it would set your department back again.

He ignored your question. “When will you be done putting the scenes in the game?”

“By tomorrow morning, at the latest.” This wasn't a complete lie. Even in the worst case scenario, the scenes would be completed by tomorrow. Tadashi said that he would most likely be done with the scenes in about an hour, but you didn't want Kaiba to come back until your team had time to test the scenes.

Kaiba didn't respond. He just glared at everyone in the room, probably making sure they were all working, before he stormed out. You assumed that his wordless exit meant that he would be back tomorrow morning.

Which gave you plenty of time to personally test parts of the game. You couldn't test all of the cut scenes, that would take too long, but at the end of the day you planned to check out the opening and closing sequences for the first level.

When Tadashi finished coding in the scenes, you told Minoru to have the tester run through them all. Kaiba gave you that tester to make sure that everything was safe, and you would be sure to do that at least. You didn't think that the code would be faulty, but you didn't like the idea of being the in game if something went wrong either. So the tester did have a small use at least.

You worked on the inventory system until there was only half an hour left in the workday. By then you were confident that Kaiba wouldn't be coming back into your department. He rarely visited any departments during the last hour of the workday, which was a good thing. Most people were just staring and the clock and _pretending_ to work at that point.

You stood and interrupted everyone's 'work'. “Hey guys, can I have your attention?”

Everyone looked at you. Some of them seemed to be hoping that you would send them home early, and they were going to be disappointed. “I need to go into the game, for about ten minutes, to check my inventory code. I need to station someone near the elevator so they can send Minoru a message if Kaiba comes down here. Minoru, you're going to instantly eject me from the game if that happens.”

“That's dangerous!” Minoru interrupted. He was horrified. “We can't do that to you again.”

“Hopefully you won't be forced to do that. I only need a few minutes to test the changes I made.”

“I don't like it. What if you get hurt or fired?”

“Kaiba came by twice today, and that's rare. He's never been to a department three times in the same day.” You pat Minoru's shoulder. “It'll be fine. Now, is anyone willing to play lookout for me?”

Everyone looked around nervously. Nobody wanted to run the risk of getting fired. “Someone please?” You did your best to look sad and made eye-contact with as many people as you could.

One of the younger employees cracked first. “I'll do it.”

You smiled at him. “Thank you. Take your phone and a computer. If Kaiba comes by and says anything make up a story. I'll back you up.”

He grabbed his phone and left the room to go sit by the elevator.

“Okay everyone. I guess you can get back to whatever you were doing.”

You pulled a chair up next to Minoru and started pointing out which files you wanted to test. He seemed uneasy, but he didn't say anything. Once you had all the files selected, you grabbed a helmet and sat in a testing chair.

“Remember, if Kaiba shows up, you need to get me out right away. Just kick me out of the game.”

“Are you sure? It's not safe, and you were already ejected once today—”

“Don't worry," you interrupted. "I was fine earlier so I should be fine again.” At least, that was your theory. “I might be a little groggy at first, so you might need to pull the helmet off my head.”

“I don't feel comfortable with this.”

“The faster I get into the game, the faster I can get out.”

Minoru still looked unhappy. You simply put the helmet on and gave him a thumbs up. For a long moment nothing happened, and you started to wonder if Minoru was going to refuse to send you into the game. Then you heard the familiar hum of the machine booting up. 'That's good,' you thought.

Suddenly, you found yourself standing in the middle of a massive room. You looked around and noticed that one side of the room seemed to lack a wall. It seemed to be a bunch of long arched openings, and you could see the sky from between the pillars.

A harpy flew past one of the openings. You stepped forward, curious about the harpy, and tripped on your skirt. You stumbled, but managed to keep yourself from falling onto the floor. Once you regained composure, you inspected your clothing. You seemed to be wearing a dress with a massive skirt. You gathered the skirt into your hands, holding it up so you wouldn't trip on it, and you were pleased to note that it felt like you were really holding fabric.

Now that you had your dress under control, you were able to walk over to the openings in the room. They ended up leading to a balcony, and your jaw dropped at the sight beyond the railings.

There were monsters everywhere: They were walking around below, crawling on the walls, and flying through the air. Humans seemed to be trying to fight them off, but they were losing, badly. Someone got stabbed with a flaming sword, and you turned away from the sight... only to find a man standing behind you.

“My lady!” The dialogue box floated above his head.

You weren't sure what to say to him, and he didn't wait for a response.

“We have to get you to safety!”

You looked back at the fight outside. It didn't look like there would be any way out of the castle.

The man grabbed your elbow. “There's no time to waste!” He pulled you away from the balcony. “Hurry!” You followed him across the room, but the double doors flew open before you could reach them.

Monsters began flooding the room. The servant began to panic. “They're already in the castle!” He lurched back, dragging you with him. He looked around, but it was too late to escape.

The monsters were rapidly filling the room and they already had the walls lined. You were surrounded, and they were still coming into the room. You didn't know how many monsters the room could contain, and you began to worry that they would never stop coming when the flood finally slowed to a trickle. Then the Dark Magician entered the room. The doors shut behind him and the monsters instantly moved in front of them.

The rest of the monsters kept out of the Dark Magician's way as he approached you. “We found the princess.” He began to circle you. “I think it's time to get rid of you, my lady.”

You stood your ground and glared at the Dark Magician. You wouldn't be intimidated in what was presumably your own castle.

“The Shadow Realm seems like a suitable place for you.” The Dark Magician waved his hand. A black circle appeared next to you. It grew larger and larger until it was almost twice your size. Beyond it, a swirling, black fog could be seen. “Do you like the look of your new home?” The Magician gestured to the monsters. “Shove her in.”

Then you were grabbed by the monsters. No matter how hard you fought, they easily kept you from breaking free. They threw you into the gaping hole. You fell to your hands and knees on a fog-covered floor.

The Dark Magician threw a bat at you. “Have fun trying to survive.”

The hole snapped shut, taking your source of light with it. You stood up and grabbed the bat. It was time to hunt down some monsters.

You tried to take a step forward, but you were somehow lying down. _What happened?_ You sat up and someone held your shoulders, helping you. _You couldn't see who it was_. Something was yanked off your head. It was suddenly brighter and you cringed, closing your eyes. _Where were you?_

“Kaiba alert.”

You knew those words. They were important. They meant that a vicious creature—your boss—was coming down to your department.

“Where is he?” You cracked open your eyes, still squinting against the light.

“He just left engineering. They put up an alert. They're right upstairs so he might be on his way down here.”

“Okay.” You stood and looked around. At least everyone was working.

“Are you okay?”

You weren't surprised that Minoru was concerned. To be honest, you were having a hard time concentrating. You wanted to get back to work, and you wanted to reclaim your kingdom at the same time.

_Real world, real world, real world._

You slid into the seat next to Minoru's station. “What time is it?”

“Four forty-two.”

There was no way you would be able to concentrate on your work right now. “Alright, let's run a test before the day ends.” Maybe you would feel better by then. You could stay after work for a while to get the rest of your work done.

It was dark and raining by the time you were done working for the day. Luckily, the streets weren't as busy as they normally were, and you didn't have to fight your way through a crowded sidewalk. The occasional car sped by, but there weren't very many pedestrians out. The coffee shops seemed to be packed with people trying to stay out of the rain. It was nice to have the sidewalk to yourself even if you were completely soaking.

The lights from their buildings lit up the puddles, and you carefully stepped around them. This morning, when you left your house, the clouds had been grey, but you hadn't expected it to rain. So you weren't wearing the right shoes for walking through puddles. Your inappropriate shoes combined with a lack of warm clothes made you hurry to get home. Just like all the other people on the street, you wanted to get out of the rain before it got too late.

Up ahead you noticed a white cat just sitting in the rain. It was odd behavior for a cat to sit in the rain, most animals found warm places to hide. You wondered if the poor cat was a stray and approached it carefully. You were close to it when it turned its head to look at you. For a moment you caught sight of blue and brown eyes. Then it took off down a side street.

You followed behind it. It looked almost exactly like the Magicat. Those dual-colored eyes gave it away. Despite the cars splashing through puddles and the smack of rain against pavement, you imagined that you could hear the tinkle of a bell.

Surely the cat was leading you somewhere important.


	6. Level 1.6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The site I normally post on is down for the rest of the month, so I don't actually know if I had anything to say about this chapter. I don't think so though. 
> 
> Enjoy~

The cat led you through the rain and into a darker side street. It kept running, farther and farther away from the brightly lit businesses. You mindlessly followed it through the rain for a while before it finally stopped running. The cat arched its back and turned toward you, hissing.

Its eyes weren't dual-colored. They were just a simple blue. You realized that it wasn't the Magicat at all. It was simply a white cat with blue eyes. You knelt down and reached out your hand, palm up, for the cat to sniff. You stayed as still as possible, and it cautiously edged toward your hand.

You looked around at your surroundings as you waited for the cat to sniff you. You only vaguely knew where you were, and it wasn't anywhere near your apartment. Then you decided that you were a little pathetic for following the cat like that. Not only were you a little bit lost, but you were lost in the rain. Now you knew how Alice might have felt. Kaiba would definitely be yelling, “Off with her head!” if he were here.

The kitten licked your hand, and your attention was back on the poor creature. It looked hungry and was probably a stray. On closer inspection, you realized that it didn't have very much in common with a Magicat at all. It had white fur, but there was nothing else that should have confused you. 

“I'm going to take you home and give you a nice meal,” you cooed. You gathered the tiny cat into your arms and hoped that you wouldn't wake up sick tomorrow. The cat was willing to let you hold it, and you could feel its bones. “Do you know how to get to my home?” you asked the cat as you scratched it behind its ears. Its entire body began to vibrate in response.

“I didn't think so. Well, at least my phone has a GPS. It'll tell me the fastest way to get home.” You pulled out your phone with one hand as you balanced the cat in the other arm. It was difficult to hold the cat and type your address into your phone at the same time but you managed. The phone pulled up walking directions for you, and you began to follow them. 

You didn't pay too much attention to any of the cars that went by until a limousine drove past you and slammed on the brakes. Then you began to panic. You were convinced that Kaiba would know what you just did. He would see the cat in your arms and figure out that you had a momentary lapse of sanity.

No. You stopped yourself from getting completely paranoid. He couldn't read your mind. He wasn't psychic, no matter how much your coworkers might like to insist otherwise. You continued walking and ignored the limo. It might not even be him, and even if it were him, that didn't mean anything. The chances of Kaiba actually noticing you were low. You convinced yourself that the limo was completely irrelevant to your life.

Until the window rolled down and you heard Kaiba's voice. “What are you doing in the rain?”

“Walking home.” He didn't have to make it sound like you were a complete idiot. You weren't just carelessly prancing about in the rain. You had to walk home and you didn't have any choice in the matter. Of course if you refrained from chasing stray cats, you would have been home by now.

“Why are you carrying a cat?” 

Drat. He noticed. You knew that you were taking too long to respond, but you couldn't think of anything. Eventually you simply said, “I'm taking him home with me.” You knew that it wasn't an adequate response, but it was the best you could do. You fought the urge to close your eyes. Kaiba had to know that something was up with the cat. How could he not?

“I wanted to discuss the progress of the graphics department with you.” 

You were surprised that he was dropping the subject of the cat. So surprised that you blurted out the first thing to come to your mind. “Right now? In the rain?”

“Don't be stupid. Tomorrow after I come down to look at the scenes in the game. I assume that they're done?” 

You nodded. “We sent our tester through them. Completely done. He says they're good.” You stumbled over your words. Hopefully Kaiba would never know that you went into the game to look at the first scene with your own senses. 

“I expect you to have an outline of when you think all the cut scenes should be completed. I sent you an email with all the details.”

“No you haven't.” Kaiba's eyes narrowed and you quickly backpedaled. “I mean, I never got that email sir.” 

“You probably haven't checked your email since I sent it, which is why I stopped to mention it to you.” Somehow he made it sound like all of that should have been obvious to you. “Try not to get sick.”

“Yes sir!” you called out as his window rolled up. The limousine pulled away from the curb and took off down the street. For a moment you stood in the rain and stared at the empty street. You were annoyed with Kaiba. It was like he didn't realize that you already had enough work. You didn't need to add a new task to your schedule. 

The cat meowed plaintively and you frowned down at him. Standing in the rain wasn't a smart idea, and you needed to get home as soon as possible. You couldn't afford to get sick.

\-----

The next day you were surprised to find Minoru at work when you got there. Normally you were the first person to enter the department in the morning, and you often worked alone for at least fifteen minutes before anyone else appeared.

All of the computers were on and running. You knew that Minoru must have been here for a while to be able to get everyone's work station set up. It was odd behavior, and you wondered if anything was wrong. “Good morning!” 

His chair spun around. “Morning! Uh, I didn't have any work to do so I just got started running a few of the tests that we didn't get to yesterday. I hope that's okay with you?”

He seemed nervous and you didn't know if that was because he wasn't sure of your reaction or if there was something bothering him. You decided to just ask. “That's fine, but why are you here so early?”

He looked down at his lap. “Is it a problem? I mean I've never been here before anyone before so I didn't know if I was even allowed up here alone.”

“It's okay Minoru. It was just a question. You aren't in trouble.”

He relaxed a little bit, but his posture was still stiff. “I was just wondering if you're okay. You seemed to be out of it yesterday.”

“I'm fine.” You smiled at him. “Don't worry about me.” You were not going to reveal yesterday's incident with the cat to anyone.

“That's good! I uh, wasn't implying that you seemed like anything was wrong. I'm sure you're fine.” Minoru was nervous again and you wondered if his previous boss was prone to yelling or something. “Don't work yourself too hard! Not that I think you work too hard! In fact—”

“Minoru, it's okay,” you interrupted his meltdown.

He nodded. “I'll get back to work.”

It was a good thing that Kaiba never spoke to the interns. With Minoru's nervous disposition, you didn't think that he could handle it. “I'll look over what you're doing in a few minutes. I need to check a few things and finalize a schedule for Kaiba before he shows up.”

“He's coming down here? Now?!”

“No!” Oh you hadn't meant to make Minoru panic. “He's coming down sometime today to check the game out but he won't be down for a while.” He would at least wait until the official work day began. 

“Oh, yeah, I knew that.” Minoru frowned. “He's been visiting a lot more than usual lately right?”

“Yeah. I think he doesn't trust me.” That was your theory anyway. You hoped that once he got a good idea of your abilities as a team leader that he would stop visiting as often. It was cutting into productivity. 

“I'm sure that's not it! I think you're a great lead!” 

“Thanks, but I don't think Kaiba is convinced of that yet.” 

“He will be!”

You decided to just smile and nod. Minoru would probably just keep trying to convince you that Kaiba would see your worth as a leader, but you were too worried that he was going to see that you didn't listen to him. You had a little white cat sitting in your apartment to prove it. 

Not that you were agreeing with Kaiba or admitting that he was right to forbid you from going into the game. It was his fault that you were ejected from the game twice yesterday. That must have been the cause of your brief confusion last night. It was late, dark, and you were just disoriented. 

You swore that Kaiba would have nothing to object to when he arrived today.

\-----

“You want me to go into the game with you?” You knew it was a bad idea to question Kaiba, but you couldn't stop yourself. Just yesterday he was yelling at you for being in the game and now he expected you to go into it with him? It was too confusing.

“You haven't gone into the game for a while. It should be fine. Unless there's something you need to tell me?”

Oh, you were so very screwed. He was studying your face, and you did your absolute best to not give yourself away. “Uh, I don't think so.” You hoped that he couldn't smell lies. Logic told you that it was impossible for him to be able to smell a lie but experience said otherwise.

“Then you shouldn't have a problem.” He seemed to be expecting you to chicken out or to suddenly protest. You wondered if he knew that you were in the game against his orders yesterday or if he was just guessing. 

Your job was on the line so you weren't going to be giving him any reason at all to fire you if you could help it. You grabbed the spare helmet and sat down in the chair. “Are you ready Mr. Kaiba?”

He sat back and put his helmet on in response. 

“Minoru, you can handle this?” 

He nodded. “Good luck.” He looked at Kaiba pointedly, and you knew what he was really saying. 

It was going to be okay. You could do this. You put the helmet on and waited for the system to boot up.

Then you were back in the castle from yesterday. This time Kaiba was standing with you. He started walking around the room, and you were ready for him to stumble and trip on his ridiculous robe. _Seriously, who was doing the clothing designs?_ You were disappointed. He barely even noticed the long robe billowing behind him. 

He inspected the room, taking much more time than you had yesterday, and even tried to open a few of the doors. They wouldn't open, but they weren't supposed to. Perhaps you should be inspecting your surroundings too, but Kaiba seemed to have everything covered. 

He finally walked over to the balcony to look outside and triggered the rest of the scene. The servant entered the room and came running toward you. You expected him to stop in front of you or run around you and stop in front of Kaiba. He didn't. He attempted to run straight through you. 

You didn't realize what was going on with enough time to move out of the way. The AI ran right into you. The basic laws of Physics didn't work in this space, and the processor didn't have a command to handle this type of situation. For a moment your body stayed in place while the AI tried to walk through you as if you didn't exist. 

It should be painful, but it felt more like there was an awkward pressure being applied to your body. Not really a pressure, but there was something moving and pushing against you. Then the man seemed to walk right into you. You looked down, and for a moment, you were two people at once before you were just yourself again. You wrapped your arms around yourself, making sure that you still felt whole.

You turned to see the man going straight for Kaiba. Kaiba wasn't paying any attention to you, and you didn't know how he'd just missed that. 

“Minoru? Did you catch what just happened?”

“I saw it... I don't know what went wrong. Should I end the game?”

“Yes please.” You needed to warn Kaiba first. “Mr. Kaiba! We need to end the game right now.” 

He was frowning at you, but you weren't going to wait for him to object. Something else could go wrong if you let the game continue like that. “Okay Minoru.”

Then you were back in the real world. You took a deep breath before you even thought about removing the helmet. You pulled the helmet off and sat up. “We got that recorded right Minoru?”

“Yeah.”

You turned to Kaiba and gave him an explanation before he could demand one. “Mr. Kaiba? I think you'll want to have a look at what just happened. You were facing away from me so you missed it.”

While Minoru showed Kaiba the clip, you tried to regain your composure. 

Tadashi came over to stand next to you. “I saw what happened. You okay?” 

You nodded. “Do you know what went wrong.” 

“The AI isn't programmed to handle a player in its way. His movement is set, I can't get him to walk around people because the graphics department didn't give me anything for that so I didn't think to program him for it.” 

“Oh. Okay, I guess we'll have to figure out a way to work around the limitation then. Can you do that while I take care of the rest of Mr. Kaiba's testing?”

Now that the problem was dealt with you pulled up a chair and sat down next to Minoru. “I think we figured out the problem.” 

Minoru might have said something, but Kaiba was standing right there, looming over him.

“Will it affect any further testing?” Kaiba wanted to know.

“It shouldn't. I'm going to stay here and monitor the testing.”

You expected him to try to force you back into the game but he didn't seem to care. “Fine.” 

You took the headset from Minoru. “Just let me know when you want to go to the next cut scene and we'll push you forward in the game.”

“This is why I warned you to stay out of the game,” he said before putting his helmet back on. 

Smug jackass. You hoped something horrible happened to him.

\-----

Lunch rolled around and you had to call a halt to Kaiba's progress through the game. He objected, but you pointed out that Minoru was an intern and you were required to give him all the necessary work breaks.

As you dismissed your entire department, you expected Kaiba to leave with them. You didn't expect him to go eat lunch, but you were expecting him to go somewhere else. It wasn't like he was getting any work done just standing around. 

“Did you need something?” you asked when it was clear that he wasn't moving. 

“You aren't leaving?” 

“You know, I would normally be suspicious if someone tried to get me to leave my department.” You grinned. “But I guess you aren't about to sabotage your own company.”

He wasn't amused in the slightest. “You're worried about sabotage?”

“It was a joke.” You tried not to sound like you were calling him stupid. He wasn't stupid. He just didn't have a sense of humor. “I usually work through lunch.”

For a moment you thought that he was going to say something, but he decided against it. He was silent for a moment. “Don't pass out.” Then he left.

_As if I don't know how to take care of myself_ , you thought before going back to work.

The moment the head of the graphics department stormed in, you regretted your decision to work through lunch. If you left he would have had a harder time finding you. Plus he wouldn't yell at you if there were other people around.

“What are you thinking?! This schedule is ridiculous!”

You should have known that your schedule wasn't going to make you any friends in the graphics team. “Kaiba gave you that schedule didn't he?”

“Yes, but I know he talked to you about it!”

You groaned. “I'm not sure what you think I can do about it, but I assure you that Mr. Kaiba is your boss.”

He was angrier now. “Do you really think anyone can keep up with this schedule? Your team is going to fall behind just as much as my team.” 

“Look, it's just a goal schedule. It's not like I'm going to go complain to Kaiba if you guys can't keep up.” You grinned. “I'm sure my team will do just fine with it.” 

He spun around and left the room muttering, “Don't know why Kaiba promoted her.”

You shook your head. It was going to hinder you if the graphics team wouldn't work with you, so you were probably going to have to talk to him once he calmed down. At the same time, you didn't regret the schedule that you gave to Kaiba. On every single game that you worked on in Kaiba Corp. the graphics team was consistent about one thing. They were always behind schedule. It usually ended up setting the programmers behind a bit as well. 

Your old boss never did anything about it, but this was one of those times when you kind of didn't blame him. He should have done something yes, but it was difficult to figure out what. Of course, the difficulty of the situation was probably only a small factor in your ex-boss' inaction. The large factor was probably that he and the animation leader were drinking buddies. Dang it. You completely forgot about that until just now.

You let your head drop down onto your desk. It was going to take a big gesture to stop animation from sabotaging you.

\-----

_You delightfully picked up the dropped loot. Each object turned into a card that had its description written on it. You didn't know why this wasn't your original idea for the inventory system. It really was brilliant._

_You put all of the cards away with the exception of one. A magic spell. You wanted to see it in action. You wandered around looking for another enemy, and you nearly cackled when one finally appeared._

_“Raigeki!” you called out._

_The card disappeared and lightning struck the monster. It turned into a pile of ash, and this time, you really did cackle._

_The ash dissolved and another bag of items appeared. You picked it up, and two more bags spawned in its place. That was perplexing. You picked up one of the other bags and four more appeared. Then more popped into existence. More and more kept appearing until you could no longer move. They piled higher and higher, and soon you wouldn't be able to breathe._

_“Call exit!” you tried to say, but it didn't work. The bags just kept coming._


	7. Level 1.7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter for the first "level"~! You guys are going to level up. ;D (Haha. Okay, not really.) The Virtual World will return in the next chapter. The first level for that world featured Spellcasters, and the next one will feature another type entirely. See if you can guess!
> 
> Enjoy~

_You delightfully picked up the dropped loot. Each object turned into a card that had its description written on it. You didn't know why this wasn't your original idea for the inventory system. It really was brilliant._

_You put all of the cards away with the exception of one. A magic spell. You wanted to see it in action. You wandered around looking for another enemy and you nearly cackled when one finally appeared._

_“Raigeki!” you called out._

_The card disappeared and lightning struck the monster. It turned into a pile of ash and this time you really did cackle._

_The ash dissolved and another bag of items appeared. You picked it up, and two more spawned in its place. That was perplexing. You picked up one of the other bags and four more appeared. Then more popped into existence. More and more kept appearing until you could no longer move. They piled higher and higher, and soon you wouldn't be able to breathe._

_“Call exit!” you tried to say, but it didn't work. The bags just kept coming._

“Wake up.”

_You tried to listen to the voice. This was the game, it had to be, so you tried to call out the command to end the game again. The bags piled higher and higher and you were buried alive._

“Wake up!”

_You tried to shove them away and dig your way out. Then you felt yourself being shoved by an unknown force._

You shot up, looking around, still trying to push the bags away.

“Calm down.” Someone's hands grabbed you and tried to hold you still. “What the hell are you doing?”

You turned and saw Kaiba standing right behind you. You looked around. The room was completely empty. You were sitting at your desk, not in the testing chair, and your computer's screensaver was running. A long list of questions ran through your head and you weren't sure which one to ask.

“Did I fall asleep?” you mumbled, rubbing at your eyes. “What time is it?”

He looked at his phone. “Nine fourteen. I was leaving the building when security told me that someone was still present. What are you doing sleeping at your desk?”

He didn't sound angry but you still needed to pick your words wisely. Anything could set him off. “I stayed late to finish some work. I think I just fell asleep working. I'm okay.”

“Wrap up your work.”

“What?”

“I'm kicking you out.” He drew the words out, speaking slowly as if you were mentally deficient.

“Seriously? Why?”

“I'm leaving, if you stay here longer than I do I risk a lawsuit. Pack up. Now.”

You wanted to protest and promise you weren't going to sue him, but he was starting to sound angry. So you turned on your computer and saved your work before shutting it down. As the computer shut down you packed up all of your stuff.

He waited for you, probably because he didn't trust you enough to leave on your own. You didn't bother pretending that you were insulted. If he weren't waiting for you, well you probably wouldn't actually leave. His mistrust was valid.

He walked with you and the two of you left the building together in silence. Security locked the doors behind you and he went straight for the limousine idling by the curb.

“I'll see you tomorrow!” you called out to him.

He turned and gave you a slight nod before getting into the backseat of his limo. You watched the limo take off down the street and wondered if you would be able to bribe the guards to let you back into the building. It was unlikely.

Oh well, tomorrow was a new day and you would have plenty of time to work then.

\-----

After your incident with the AI you were a little wary of going back into the virtual world. Plus the dream that you had when you accidentally fell asleep made you want to completely finish your work with the inventory. You were done writing the code for the system itself, but all of the items needed to be rewritten or changed so that they were compatible with the new code. It was more tedious and time consuming than anything else but it needed to get done.

So the next day you decided that you wouldn't run any testing. The perverted tester was officially gone from your department and everyone else had work to do.

Then Mokuba Kaiba showed up.

When Mokuba initially walked into your department, you were almost at a loss for words. The Vice President was rarely spotted without his brother and you had to do a double take to confirm that he was indeed alone.

“Mr. Kaiba, it's a pleasure to see you.” Pleasantries were wasted on the older Kaiba, but the younger brother was an unknown entity. Better safe than sorry. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Mokuba frowned. “Could you not call me Mr. Kaiba? It makes me feel like my brother.”

“Okay.” You weren't sure what you should call him then. Mokuba was too informal for him, but you didn't want to refer to him as Mr. Vice President either. Hopefully you could just avoid using his name altogether. You waited for a moment before repeating your question. “Was there something you needed?”

“Oh! Right! I wanted to look at the game. It sounds pretty interesting and I had some spare time so I figured I'd come take a look.”

“Did you want to take a look at the game itself?” You weren't actively running any tests at the moment, everyone was working on their own individual codes, but you could probably have someone at least run the test harness for the levels. You glanced around to see who could be pulled away from their work for a few moments.

He must have noticed the way you were looking at everyone in the department. “Is now not a good time?”

It wasn't a good time, but you didn't know if you could actually say that to him or not. “It's okay. We can just start up a test harness on a computer for you to look at...”

Except all the computers were currently in use.

“Actually, I wanted to check out the virtual reality myself by going into the game.”

Your train of thought crashed. “Is your brother okay with that?” you blurted out. Then you bit your bottom lip. Mokuba wasn't a little kid. He didn't need his brother's permission and you might have just offended him. “I'm sorry, I just mean... uh, Mr. Kaiba has been a little _sensitive_ about the virtual reality testing.” You honestly didn't think that Kaiba would let his little brother do testing without being present.

Mokuba shrugged. “He's in meetings all day so I haven't talked to him, but I don't think he'd mind.”

Well, you couldn't do anything about it. If the Vice President wanted to test the game then you were going to let him. He was your boss too and he could fire you. “Give me a minute to get it ready.” You saved your work before moving over to the testing station.

Since you hadn't planned on doing any testing today the computer hooked up to the virtual system wasn't even on. You pressed the power button and waited as it warmed up. The testing helmets were both in the chairs and you gave one to Mokuba. “I'll be running your testing from here.” You weren't going to trust him to anyone else. If anything went wrong you were the one with the best knowledge of the code. “If you talk in the Virtual Reality I'll be able to hear you and I can use a microphone to patch my voice into the game.”

You brought up the most recent, debugged version of the game. “Is there anywhere specific you wanted to look at? The battle system is fully operational but the ammo is still set to infinite. The new inventory system is up and running, but we haven't defined all the items yet so you might run into a few bugs here and there if you try to use items.”

“Just the beginning of the game is fine.” He didn't sound completely sure of his decision. If he just wanted a look at the game then the beginning would probably be the best place.

You loaded the game into the virtual reality system. “Sit down and put the helmet on and I'll start it up.”

He followed your instructions and laid back in the chair. You waited until he was done getting comfortable before booting up the system. The helmet turned on and you knew that he was no longer conscious.

The game's loading screen took over your entire monitor. It took a few moments to load, longer than it felt when you were the one in the helmet, but you were finally able to hit play. The opening sequence began playing on the screen and you put on headphones so you could hear what was going on.

Watching Mokuba was actually fun. The moment he saw the fighting going on outside he leaned on the balcony and excitedly looked around. “Wow! This is awesome!”

He played the game with a childlike eagerness that you wouldn't have expected from a twenty-something-year-old or anyone related to Kaiba. It was nice to watch him as he enjoyed the game. Even if he enjoyed shooting things a little too much...

It was hard to remember to keep an eye out for any strange behavior. Every so often you had to remind yourself to check the monitor displaying the output for the code. Between that and watching Mokuba enjoy your game you lost track of time.

Before you knew it Tadashi was standing next to you. He said your name to get your attention and you pushed the headphones off, giving him your full attention.

He stared at you expectantly for a moment. “It's lunchtime,” he finally explained.

“Oh!” You looked at the clock. You were so caught up with Mokuba's journey through the game that you lost track of time. An hour and a half felt like no time at all. “Everyone, you can leave!”

The entire department was obviously already ready to leave. They all stood the moment it was official and began to file out the door. You threw the headphones back on and pressed the button for the microphone. “Mokuba?”

He looked around and called out your name as a question.

“Yeah. I just wanted to let you know that it's lunchtime.”

“Really?” He smacked his forehead. “Damn. I need to get back.”

You were relieved to hear that. You had a lot of work that you needed to do, and as much fun as it was to watch him, you were starting to feel a little anxious. “I'm going to end the game now.” You waited for him to give you the okay before shutting down the game.

You were about to help him remove the helmet when your name was called. You turned to find Kaiba's secretary standing in the doorway with a large bag in her arms.

“Did you need something?” You were curious. Kaiba's personal secretary wasn't often seen running around the building unless she had something important to deliver.

“Hey!” Mokuba was sitting up in the chair. “Are you looking for me?”

She seemed surprised to see Mokuba, but she didn't question him. “No, Mr. Kaiba. I didn't even know you were working today.”

“It was spur of the moment. I'm actually about to leave.”

She nodded before turning back to you. “Do you like chicken or beef?”

That was a strange question. “Uh, beef?”

She crossed the room and put her bag down on the desk closest to yours. “Okay, that works.” She opened the bag and pulled out a styrofoam box, she looked inside before closing it and putting it back down. She pulled out another box and looked inside before handing it to you.

You took the box and peeked into it. “Food? Why are you giving me food?”

“Mr. Kaiba's orders.” She packed up the first box that she pulled out and grabbed the bag. “He ordered me to pick you up something for lunch when I got his lunch. Now if you'll excuse me.”

“Seto told you to pick up food for her?!” Mokuba invaded your space and looked into the container. “Nice.” He grinned and you didn't have to know anything about him to know what he was thinking. The grin on his face was identical to the type of grin that your friends would exhibit before they mercilessly teased you about something. “Is Seto in a meeting right now?” he asked the secretary.

“Yes, but it'll be over in about five minutes so I need to hurry up there.” She hurried over to the door. “Goodbye.”

Mokuba pulled out his phone and started typing something. He was still grinning from ear to ear as he casually sauntered out of the room.

You shrugged it off and started eating the food while you went back to work. It was suspicious that Kaiba would have food brought to you during lunch, but you weren't about to chase down his secretary and ask her about his motivations. If she knew what was good for her, and she probably did since she managed to keep her job for more than a month, then she wouldn't have asked him. So it was unlikely that she even knew why she was bringing you food.

Mokuba might know, but it was unlikely that he would share his brother's motivations with you.

The food was so good, or maybe you were just really hungry, that you didn't even notice it was gone until you reached for more and your fork dug into styrofoam. You didn't know where the secretary picked this stuff up, but you were going to ask her next time you saw her. It would almost be worth using your lunch break if you could get this for lunch. Almost.

\------

Mokuba's presence in your department set your entire day behind schedule. You were already planning to stay after hours and work, but now you felt like you _needed_ to stay behind and work.

You had a nice test harness that you could use to test the inventory system. It was based on the harness that your team used to test all the levels but coded with the voice recognition of the virtual reality. The game needed to understand when the player wanted to be able to use an item.

After work you started the process of testing all the items for the first level. Since you needed to speak into the microphone it was the sort of thing that would probably distract some of your coworkers so you waited until they were gone.

Then Kaiba let himself into your department and you leaped out of your seat. “Can I help you Mr. Kaiba?” You really wanted to ask him why he was bothering you after hours, yet again, but that was a surefire ticket to the unemployment line.

“Get back to work.” He began moving everything off of the desk next to yours.

You wanted to follow his orders. Not only did listening to him seem like the smartest action but you actually liked the order that he gave you. Except it was a strange request. Wasn't he going to tell you what he was doing in your department?

“Sit down,” he ordered.

It was sheer reflexes that caused you to sit back in your seat. You watched as he pulled out his laptop and settled into the desk that he just cleared. Maybe he was doing a report on your progress? That seemed to make sense.

“What were you working on before I came in?” He was already typing on his own computer and not even looking at you, so you were surprised that he would ask you a question.

“I told you that I managed to adapt your code to suit the game right? I'm actually testing it right now. We're still changing the code for most of the items in the game, but all of the items in the first level have been converted.” You faced your computer again as you explained what you were doing. He interrupted you in the middle of using an item, and you couldn't stop yourself from completing that test as you talked.

“Do you have the code saved to the network?”

“No, but I can copy it to my folder right now if you want to see it,” you offered.

“Do so.”

You nodded, not even sure if he was even looking at you, and copied the code you were currently using into your network files. The moment it was saved you told him the filename.

He didn't respond, so you assumed he was probably going to look it over. You went back to work as he read your code in silence.

He inevitably broke the silence with a complaint. “Your algorithm starting at line sixty-seven is inefficient.”

You frowned, but you weren't able to recall exactly which function started on that line. “Which part?” you asked as you walked over to look at his screen.

“Here.” He pointed to a line. “This part is unnecessary.”

He was wrong. “No, we'll need that later for the ammunition.” The code wouldn't work with the ammunition design if you didn't have that part.

“Write a function in the ammunition code to handle it. A simple switch statement here should suffice.”

 _Damn._ He had a point. “I'll make the adjustment tomorrow with Tadashi.” You went back to your desk and wrote it down so that you wouldn't forget. You worked, and he continued to read. He pointed out little flaws here and there, but you were pleased to note that he had yet to find anything serious.

You were proud of how well you were able to adapt his code. So when he finally finished looking it over and packed up his laptop, you were waving a little victory flag in your mind.

Then you remembered the mysterious circumstance of lunch. You tried to think of a polite way to bring it up. _I had a nice surprise... Your secretary came by... Have you seen your brother yet..._ Nothing seemed suitable.

He seemed to value honesty, so you decided to just be blunt about it. “Why did you have your secretary bring me lunch today?”

He wasn't phased by the question. “You're no good to me if you pass out from exhaustion.”

That just didn't seem like a good enough reason for him to buy you lunch. “So you're going to buy me lunch every day now?”

He turned to face you. His eyebrow was raised and he looked amused. “I _arranged_ for lunch to be brought to you every day, but I am not buying it for you. The price is deducted from your paycheck.”

You couldn't do anything but stare at him.


	8. Level 2.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monsters mentioned in this update:  
> [Cosmo Queen](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Cosmo_Queen)|[Magicat](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Magicat)|[Dancing Fairy](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Dancing_Fairy)
> 
> Enjoy~

You pulled the helmet off and sat up. “The ammo system is great Tadashi!”

He gave you a thumbs up from his work station. “Thank you, but I'm still not done with it.”

You were curious about the improvements that he was planning on making. Currently the amount of ammo that the player was carrying was inscribed on a card while the amount of ammo in the gun was displayed on the gun itself. Instead of forcing the player to actually carry ammunition, the process of reloading was simplified. The player just needed to pull the magazine out and put it back in to reload the gun. It was a good system, and you were happy with how well it worked.

You had confidence in Tadashi and believed that whatever improvements that he made would make the system better. “Just keep me updated.”

Now that you finally settled into your job as lead, you felt like everything was coming together nicely. Between you and Tadashi, the game itself was ahead of schedule. You were both the busiest programmers, but if you couldn't deal with a problem that came up, he could.

It helped that Kaiba was spending less time terrorizing your department. After the first week, Kaiba's visits to your department during the day lessened. He still stopped by in the evening a lot, and occasionally kicked you out of the building, but those visits were actually interesting. His questions about the development made you think about things that you wouldn't have otherwise considered.

“Do you have the notes?” you asked Minoru.

Minoru passed you the paper with all of the notes on the first level. You told him to write down quite a bit while you went through the level. None of it was anything major, and it would all be easy to handle if a bit time consuming. You read it through once before giving it back to Minoru. “Do you think you can handle making all of these changes?”

He nodded. “I'll do my best.”

“I'll leave you to it then. I'm going to go up to animation to see if they're done yet.” You did a quick scan of the room, double checking that everything was going smoothly, before you left.

Your luck took a downward turn, and you ran into Kaiba at the elevator. He stepped out and onto your floor. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

You winced as the elevator doors closed behind him. You were going to have to start your wait for the elevator all over. “I'm about to visit animation and check on their progress.” You pushed the up button.

He was still standing there. “Did you need something from me, Mr. Kaiba?”

“I was about to visit your department.”

You picked up on the key word in that sentence. He _was_ going to visit your department, and just when you were appreciating him for not terrorizing your staff. You should have known better. The elevator door opened, and you stepped inside. Kaiba followed you, and it was amusing to watch everyone else in the elevator edge away from him.

You pulled out your phone in an attempt to discreetly warn animation that Kaiba was coming with you, but Kaiba noticed.

“Don't even think about it.”

You put your phone back in your pocket. “I was just checking the time.”

His scoff said that he didn't believe you.

The moment the two of you entered animation, he found someone to yell at. His ability to spot Facebook from across the room was vaguely impressive. You wondered, not for the first time, if he was wearing high powered contacts that acted as binoculars. If anyone had that sort of technology, it would be Seto Kaiba.

Junpei Arai, head of the animation department, showed up next to you. “Thanks for the warning. If he fires anyone, you owe me a drink.”

“I tried to warn you, but he stopped me.” You kept your eyes trained on Kaiba to make sure that he couldn't hear your whispered response. “You really shouldn't let people get on Facebook.”

“I don't have time to constantly hover behind everyone,” he griped. “You should know that.”

You did know that, but you still did your best to keep people working. “Haven't you been down to programming lately? I moved my desk next to the door and facing away. So whenever I look up I can see whatever Kaiba might see if he were to walk in.” It meant that you kept better tabs on anyone whose screen you could see from your new spot. Anyone else would have time to change what was on their screen before Kaiba could see it. “Only one person has been fired since I've taken over the department.”

“It hasn't been that long,” Arai pointed out. “And wasn't he fired for looking at **porn**? I hear the IT guys were the ones who caught him.”

You glared at his implication, but you didn't have time to give him a proper retort. Kaiba was already done with his rampage and returning. The man who had gotten himself fired was no great loss to your department. His sections kept breaking the game, and before he was caught downloading porn, you had considered firing him yourself.

“Mr. Kaiba!” Arai greeted him. “You'll be happy to hear that we've completed all the cut scenes for the second level.”

“You have?” you blurted out. You came up here to ask him how close they were to completion, but you didn't expect them to actually be done.

Arai gave you a cool smile. “That's what I was just telling you.”

“Good. You're exactly on schedule. Are you ready for the scenes in programming?”

Arai glared at you when Kaiba mentioned the schedule but said nothing.

“Yes sir.” You wanted to stick your tongue out at Arai. You knew it was immature, but you still wanted to do it. “We're actually ahead of schedule.”

“Then I see no reason to remain up here.” Kaiba turned to leave, and you knew that you were supposed to go with him.

You hesitated. “Send my department a warning?” you whispered to Arai.

“No.”

“I hate you.” You hurried to catch up with Kaiba.

“You still owe me a drink!” Arai called out after you.

You would have given him the finger, but Kaiba was eying you, and you knew that you had to maintain your professionalism. Even if Kaiba wasn't present, you needed to stay professional.

“He won a bet,” you explained, even though Kaiba hadn't asked.

True to his word, Arai didn't warn your department, and everyone was shocked to see Kaiba come in with you. At least, they all seemed to be working.

“Animation finished the scenes for the second level,” you announced.

Your announcement was met with groans rather than cheers. Now that the second level could be completely finished, they knew you were going to be cracking the whip trying to get them to complete the third level. You wanted to constantly be a step ahead of animation. 

Kaiba accompanied you over to your work station. “Your team is making more progress than I anticipated.”

“Thank you.”

“It was an observation, not a compliment.”

It didn't matter what he tried to say, he was acknowledging that your department was running smoothly and that was a compliment in your book. “I'm sure you'll have plenty of things to yell at us for later in development if it's any consolation.” It was always at the end, when you streamlined everything and tried to optimize the game that things fell apart. A minor change would end up breaking the entire code, and your team would spend days ripping their hair out trying to figure out why and how.

It was sometimes frustrating how easily all of the code could fall apart, even after it was already tested.

“We were about to move testing into the second level,” you informed Kaiba as you sat down at your desk. You opened the network files so you could search for the cut scenes that animation just completed. You began to download a copy so that you could encode them in the game. “You haven't gone into the game for a while. Would you like to check it out?” You knew that he appreciated seeing results instead of hearing about them.

He glanced at the time on his phone. “How is development of the weapon system?”

“Operational. The ammo system is up and working.”

“Fine. I have half an hour before my next meeting.”

“Okay.” You stood. “Minoru, how are those changes going?”

“I'm not done yet.” He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “Did... do you want me to do something?”

You liked having Minoru oversee any testing, he did it so often that he knew what to look for, but almost anyone in your department could keep an eye on the monitors. “No, keep working.” You scanned the room looking for someone who could be pulled away from their desk.

Tadashi called your name to get your attention. “I'm at a break in my coding. I'd like to oversee the testing.”

He wouldn't have been your first choice, but if he wanted to do it, you wouldn't say no. Kaiba would be looking at the system that Tadashi designed, and it would only be fair for Tadashi to be able to listen to Kaiba's comments. “Okay.”

The system was still on from earlier, and the first level was still loaded. “I was going to switch over to the second level, but if you want to look at the first level that's okay too.”

He seemed to consider it for a moment. “You finally resolved the issues you were having with the final boss?”

Your face flushed at the memory. At some point, the code for the final boss in the first level became so messed up that the boss was attacking its surroundings instead of the player. It was an embarrassing mistake that caused you to lose your composure while Kaiba was present. After hearing you suddenly start yelling at your computer, Kaiba wouldn't rest until he discovered what you were working on.

At least nobody else had been present for that failure.

“Yes. Once I isolated the function causing the problem, it was an easy fix.”

“Let's start with the final battle and keep going into the second level.” Kaiba grabbed a virtual helmet and turned to Tadashi. “Inform me when half an hour has gone by.”

“Yes sir!”

Kaiba nodded and sat down in the more comfortable testing chair.

You should have joined him, but you couldn't stop yourself from hovering behind Tadashi as he added the second level into the system. This would be your first time testing the transition into a new level, and even though you knew Tadashi wasn't going to mess anything up, you were nervous.

“If anything goes wrong, I mean anything, end the game.”

Tadashi wasn't bothered by your nerves. “Don't worry. I've got it. Now go sit down.”

You just raised an eyebrow at his command. He was the only person on the floor who still tried to tell you to relax from time to time. “Just remember that Kaiba will fire us both.” Serious words, but Tadashi knew that you were mostly joking.

You took your seat next to Kaiba. “Ready?” you asked him.

“Yes.” He put his helmet on, and you took that as the signal to start the game.

You put your own helmet on and gave Tadashi a thumbs up.

\-----

You found yourself standing outside a giant bubble with Kaiba. He seemed to be studying it but unwilling to get near it.

You pressed a hand through the blue gel-like substance. “Try it,” you told him.

His nose wrinkled at the thought of touching the bubble's layer.

“You have to walk through it to get to the final boss.” The boss itself was within the bubble. This was her domain, and she often used the gel as a shield. Any bullets that hit the substance would get stuck in it and it was impossible to destroy. “Come on!” You stepped through the gel.

It was a thick substance, and you felt some resistance as you pushed your way through it. Luckily it wasn't very thick, and you found yourself on the other side a moment later.

Kaiba's hand appeared on your side of the bubble, and he clenched and unclenched his hand. You grabbed his hand and pulled him through to your side.

“You were taking too long,” you told him before he could say anything. “Pistol.” You grabbed the pistol out of the air and checked the ammo. You pointed out the number on the side to Kaiba before reloading your gun. “The Cosmo Queen could attack any minute. Watch out.”

Kaiba went straight for his machine gun and began stalking around the bubble's interior. You stayed close behind him in an attempt to cover him.

The inside of the bubble looked like a brightly glowing cave. There were pillars of gel everywhere, connecting the ceiling to the ground. The world seemed to be blue. You almost missed the dark blue light that came soaring your way.

You dived behind the nearest pillar just in time. Kaiba's machine gun kicked into gear, and it continuously discharged its rounds. You cautiously looked out from behind the pillar and saw Kaiba running after the Cosmo Queen.

Her large golden crown made her easy to spot amidst the blue environment. She kept ducking behind pillars, using them as barriers, and shooting magic at Kaiba. Rather than taking cover, Kaiba simply dodged her attacks.

You stayed low and tried not to get the monster's attention as you circled around behind it. Dashing from pillar to pillar in a large semi-circle took you some time, and by the time you were in a good position, Kaiba had been forced to take cover so he could reload.

You took the monster by surprise as you shot at it from behind. It turned on you, sending back another spell, and you dove behind your pillar.

Bambambambambam! Kaiba was back in the game.

The monster left its position, shooting magic at the two of you as it tried to reposition itself. You knew that it was coded to search for a wall when two players attacked it at once. Kaiba continued to bear down on it, and you harassed it from the sidelines.

Kaiba eventually got close to the creature while it was targeting you. It fell over before disintegrating into pixels. The gel bubble around the two of you darkened as it hardened. It continued to become darker and darker. Then it finally cracked and shattered. The pieces sparkled like glitter as they floated to the ground. You held out a hand and watched a pile of glitter form in your palm.

You considered blowing the glitter at Kaiba, but you knew that it would be a bad idea. Dropping your hand, you let the glitter fall to the ground before rejoining Kaiba. He actually had some little blue pieces in his hair, and you grinned. It was a nice detail. You might actually have to congratulate someone in animation for thinking of it.

The Magicat pranced up to the two of you, and you imagined that it was meowing happily. Now that the Cosmo Queen was dead, the Mystic Elf would no longer be a prisoner. She would finally be able to send you back to your kingdom. The two of you followed the Magicat back to the Mystic Elf's clearing.

She was already present when you arrived, and she began speaking almost immediately. She was thanking the two of you for your help, but she didn't have subtitles, and you couldn't remember exactly what she was saying.

A panic-stricken look crossed her face. Her hands began to glow, and you knew that she was beginning to cast a spell. Chaos Sorcerers began to appear from every edge of the clearing, and they swarmed forward as more and more of them appeared.

You couldn't fight them. You were glowing and disintegrating, incapable of movement. They were getting closer. Some of them were even beginning to cast spells of their own. Then there was a flash of light, and the clearing was gone.

The blue sky seemed very bright after the darkness of the fog, and it seemed to be the only thing around you.

“This is ridiculous.”

You looked over to find Kaiba stomping on the cloud beneath his feet. “It's a fantasy game, Mr. Kaiba. Talk to the writing department.” You hoped that he wouldn't complain about the impossibility of walking on clouds for the entire level.

You ignored him for a moment and slowly moved toward the edge of the cloud. Before you could fall off of the cloud entirely, you hit an invisible barrier. You breathed a sigh of relief. If the barrier wasn't working, you didn't want to be the one who had to test it. Who knew what would happen if you fell off the cloud.

When you turned back, Kaiba was already walking away from you. There was only one path away from your current position, and in the distance, you could see a castle. Even though you knew that there was a barrier to keep you from plummeting to your death, you were still wary as you chased after Kaiba.

He held up his gun the moment he noticed something flying toward the two of you.

“Don't shoot them,” you warned.

He didn't respond, but he lowered his weapon slightly. He kept moving toward the creatures, and you followed him. Eventually you were able to make out the three flying fairies. They were all the size of your hand and childlike in appearance.

“You _can_ shoot them,” you informed Kaiba. “They're hard to hit, but if you actually manage to hit one, all of the fairies in this level will turn against you. So it's better to not hit them.”

The fairies reached the two of you and began to fly circles around your heads. One tugged on Kaiba's shirt.

“We should shoot them.”

“No! They're just trying to get us to follow them.”

One sat down on Kaiba's shoulder, and you couldn't stop yourself from giggling at the sight. He scowled at you before brushing the fairy off his shoulder. She angrily tugged Kaiba's hair before hiding behind you.

You just laughed harder.

“This level is completely ridiculous. Pistol.”

Your eyes widened as Kaiba switched his machine gun for a pistol. “You aren't about to shoot them are you?”

He said nothing but aimed his gun at the fairies that were currently flitting around your head.


	9. Level 2.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, and I'm very happy to be posting it! There's a lot of virtual world in it so I hope you guys like that.
> 
> Monsters featured today:  
> [Rose Fairy](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Rose_Fairy)|[Fairy Guardian](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Fairy_Guardian)|[Dark Witch](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Witch)|[Wingweaver](http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Wingweaver)
> 
> Enjoy~!

It was **not** okay that Kaiba currently had a gun pointed at you. Dying in this game was supposed to be uncomfortable, and you didn't want to experience it for yourself. “Mr. Kaiba. Could you please put the gun down?”

Out of context, this would be a frightening situation, but somehow you didn't think anyone would be surprised to hear about it.

He ignored you and kept his gun raised. He fired, and you dropped to the ground.

One of the fairies fell to the ground next to you and disintegrated. You let out a cry of shock. Not only had Kaiba shot at the fairies, but he'd actually managed to hit one. You would have been impressed by his aim if you weren't depressed by the fairy's death. You sat up from your position on the floor and switched to your bat.

“You know all the fairies are going to attack us now.”

It was too late for the warning. The other two fairies were swooping down on Kaiba. You decided to maintain your seated position on the floor as you watched him shoot at them. With all his shooting it seemed too dangerous to be near him at the moment. At least his stray bullets wouldn't be bouncing off of any walls. They just disappeared into the sky. 

Not that there were very many stray bullets in the first place. He was quick and accurate. The fairies were all dead before you knew it. It was a little bit depressing. Yeah they were just pixels, but they were cute pixels.

You stood up, still holding your bat, and tried not to sound too rude. “We're going to have to fight our way through the fairy city now.”

“They're irritating.” He smirked. “Who wouldn't shoot them?”

You didn't respond to that. How could you respond to that? It was a little bit mean. You just turned and began walking down the path toward the fairy city. Kaiba fell into step with you.

“You're on your own with the fairies,” you informed Kaiba. You leisurely rolled the bat in a circle. “I'm only going to attack them if they attack me first.”

Kaiba scoffed. “I don't need your help.”

The path was lined with roses now, and you fell slightly behind Kaiba. This section was coded with an algorithm that would make the next battle completely random. Assuming it worked, the fairies could appear any moment now.

Finally the roses began moving, and a number of them floated upward to reveal that they were really fairies masquerading as roses. They fluttered around as Kaiba began to take aim. He hit one, and it exploded into rose petals.

A Fairy Guardian appeared and landed on the clouds up ahead. A few of the Rose Fairies flitted over to it and flew around its head as if they were telling it something. You dashed ahead of Kaiba. “I'll take care of that one.”

“I thought you weren't going to help me,” he mocked as he took aim at another fairy.

You kept your eyes on the scythe and mace that the Fairy Guardian was wielding. You weren't in range of them just yet. “Well, I hear dying in this game is painful and I don't want you to end up in a bad mood, Mr. Kaiba.”

“As if these ridiculous things could kill me.”

The spiked ball of the mace swung your way and you were too busy dodging it to respond to Kaiba. You raised your bat, one hand on each end of it, to block the downward swing of the fairy's scythe. You quickly disengaged from the scythe and tried to swing your bat at your opponent's head.

His mace forced you to dance backward again before his scythe scratched your arm.

This wasn't going to work. You had very little hand to hand combat experience and it was starting to show. You held out your bat, letting the chain of the mace hit it and forcing the ball to wrap around it. You twisted the bat and tossed it aside, tearing the mace from the fairy's grasp. It still had the scythe, but you were able to dance out of range as you switched weapons.

“Pistol.” Your bat disappeared from its spot on the ground and a pistol appeared in front of you. You grabbed the pistol and dodged the guardian's scythe again. As it pulled back its scythe you took aim and shot at the fairy. Its six wings fluttered, picking it up and carrying it out of your bullet's trajectory.

You were ready for that, and you shot once more. This time your bullet found its way into the fairy's chest and the Fairy Guardian fell out of the sky. With no time to waste you turned around to face Kaiba. He was still dispatching Rose Fairies, but now that the Fairy Guardian was dead all the Rose Fairies were flying away.

Kaiba continued to shoot them as they flew away.

“They won't be back,” you informed him. “They retreat once the Fairy Guardian is destroyed. Bat.” You grabbed your bat as Kaiba faced you.

“That was hardly a challenge.”

“It was only the first battle of the level.” You used your bat to point to the castle in the distance. “It gets harder as we get closer to the city, and the city itself is almost like a melee.”

“Mr. Kaiba, sir?” Tadashi's voice interrupted. “Half an hour has gone by.”

Kaiba frowned. “End the game,” he ordered Tadashi. He didn't sound very happy about it and you hoped that meant he was enjoying himself.

“Are you both ready?” Tadashi inquired.

“Yes,” you said.

“Just end it,” Kaiba ordered.

Then you were staring at the dark inside of a virtual helmet. You carefully pulled the helmet off, wincing a bit against the bright light of the room, and sat up. Kaiba was already standing by the time you started to take stock of your surroundings.

“Do you mind if I do some testing?” you questioned before he left. He was less against letting you go into the virtual world now, but he still made you keep a log of how many hours everyone in your department spent in the game. A log that may or may not have the wrong name for some of the entries. His worry was understandable, but you knew yourself better than he did. This wasn't your first time working on a virtual reality or testing one and you were perfectly fine.

The nightmares were probably just a result of thinking about the game too much and the stress of being in charge of a development team for the first time.

Kaiba looked like he was going to reject your request, but he surprised you. “Don't spend too much time testing it.”

“Yes sir!” Sometimes you really did feel like you should be saluting him. Except he probably wouldn't be amused by it so you always refrained.

He left for his meeting and you sat back into the chair. “Tadashi, do you mind if I check the first cut scene with the fairies? Kaiba shot them so I didn't get to see it.”

“Sure. I'm curious about it too.”

You sat up and held out the helmet for Tadashi. “Do you want to go in and look at it?” You didn't want to be selfish like your last boss. He just ordered you around and expected you to do all of the work.

“Nah. I can see it on the screen, and I don't want to see fairies dance around my head.”

“Your loss.” You slid the helmet onto your head and gave him the thumbs up.

Again you found yourself up in the air and standing on clouds. You walked along the pathway until the three fairies from earlier came back up to you. They flew around your head and tugged lightly at your clothing and hair. You followed behind them letting them provide you with an escort toward the castle.

This time, when you walked between the rows of roses nobody attacked you. The little rose fairies peeked out from inside the bushes but they didn't move. When you paused to look at them, the three fairies that were leading you began to tug you forward until you started walking again.

Eventually you came up on the walls of the fairy city. There was a Dark Witch standing guard outside the gates. She looked you over before waving her staff and opening the gates. The entire city seemed to be a ghost town but you knew differently. If you'd managed to make it this far earlier with Kaiba, there would have been fairies everywhere trying to stop you from making it to their queen. Now that you had an official escort they were all hiding.

The three fairies finally led you into the castle where their queen was sitting on her throne. The Wingweaver stretched out all six of her wings as she stood up to greet you. She was much taller than you, even taller than Kaiba, and seemed more like some sort of goddess with her draped gown than a fairy.

She launched into the explanation about how the thunder monsters were terrorizing all of her people. She offered assistance in your war against the Dark Magician if you would just destroy the leader of the thunder monsters.

At this point, if you agreed you would be led to where the thunder monsters were and you would have to fight or sneak your way past all of them until you found their leader. If you didn't agree to her request, the Wingweaver would claim that you were a spy and the two blobs shaped like men next to her would attack you. Either way you were done watching the first cut scene.

“Tadashi? You can stop the game now.”

“Got it. Just give me a moment.”

You kept your eyes closed as you carefully removed the helmet. You blinked against the light and let yourself get completely readjusted to it before you set the helmet aside. “Thanks Tadashi. You can go back to whatever you were doing before I pulled you away.”

He nodded and went back to his work station. You went back to your computer and logged back in to your account. Before you threw yourself back into programming you wanted to check your email. Kaiba sent out emails at random points in the day and he expected efficient responses. You were almost certain that if you got fired one day, it would be for not responding to an important email quickly enough.

You had an email from Arai asking if your department was still intact and inviting you to go out for a drink with him later today. Well you weren't about to agree to a date. “Hey you guys, does anyone want to meet up at the nearby bar later tonight to celebrate completing the second level?” you announced.

“You buying?”

You were still facing your computer so you couldn't tell who it was, but there was no way you were buying drinks for your entire department. “No.”

“Let's go!” Apparently it didn't matter that you weren't paying for their drinks because half of your department cheered.

You sent Arai an email saying that your department agreed that tonight was a good night for a friendly drink and asked him if he thought that six was a good time to meet at the bar.

You just hoped that your department and his wouldn't get involved in another drinking contest. That was what happened the last time you went to one of these things and it got ugly fast.

\-----

The work day was officially over when Minoru pulled you out of your coding to ask you a question. You answered his question, went back to work, and then glanced at the clock.

“Minoru! What are you still doing here!” You spun around in your chair to glare at him.

He looked like a deer in the headlights, and so scared that you almost felt bad for yelling at him. “I just wanted to finish all the work you gave me!”

You shook your head. “Minoru. You're an intern. You cannot work overtime or I get in trouble. Save your work and go home.”

“I'm really close—”

“No.” You felt bad for glaring at him. “I could get fired for keeping you here past the amount of hours that you're allowed to work.”

He looked down at his keyboard and you felt like a monster for being so mean to him. “I just wanted to be a good programmer like you.” He was such a puppy.

“Minoru, relax. Your work is fine.”

He didn't respond.

“Are you coming to the bar tonight?” Then a thought occurred to you. “Wait, you're at least twenty right?” He was a student so he could be too young to drink.

He seemed surprised. “I'm twenty-one, but I didn't think that I should go tonight.”

“Oh no! You should come! It'll be fun. Last time Tadashi drank Arai under the table.” It might be worth buying Arai drinks just to see that happen again actually.

“I'll think about it.”

You might have tried to convince him, but Kaiba chose that moment to come in with his laptop. “Good afternoon, Mr. Kaiba.”

Kaiba nodded in your direction before his eyes locked onto Minoru. You could tell that he was wondering why you weren't alone like you normally were. You wondered if he even knew Minoru's name. It was a big company and interns weren't important enough for Kaiba to know any of them.

“Hopefully I'll see you tonight,” you told Minoru, hoping that he would get the picture and leave before Kaiba started asking questions.

Minoru nodded and ran out of the room like a rabbit. Minoru was clearly terrified of Kaiba, but you couldn't judge him. You were scared of Kaiba during your first few months at Kaiba Corp. too. Of course you weren't as completely frightened as Minoru, but Minoru was also a little bit timid.

Kaiba took a seat at the desk he normally used when he visited you in the evenings and opened his laptop. “Interdepartmental relations are frowned upon.”

“Oh no!” You frantically tried to explain what was going on. “The entire department is getting together for drinks tonight! The graphics department will be there too. It's just a friendly get together. Nothing weird.” You hesitated. “You could come too, if you want?”

His expression was inscrutable. It was difficult to tell if he was judging you right now or not. “Don't be ridiculous. I don't have time to waste with such frivolities.”

You looked away from him, and back down at your work. You knew that it was nearly impossible for Seto Kaiba to think positively about anyone, but you didn't want him to think that you wasted your time either. “It's just something that the departments do from time to time to help with departmental unity.”

He didn't respond, so you went back to focusing on your work. Having Kaiba in the same room put a lot of pressure on you. He wasn't actually paying any attention to what you were doing, but you still felt like he could look over your shoulder at any moment. He was almost distracting.

“Why do you keep coming down here to work?” It was a question that you'd been wondering for a while now.

“It's normally quiet down here, and nobody can interrupt me.”

You wondered who in their right mind would visit Kaiba's office after work hours, but you weren't brave enough to ask him that. It was one thing to ask why he was working with you, it was another to ask who visited him.

He didn't come down every single day. On days that he did come down to sit with you after work, he normally did the paperwork that was relevant to your department and looked over all of your team's progress on the game. You couldn't deny that even if he was distracting, it was nice to get feedback.

You went back to work, not quite comfortable with Kaiba's mysterious presence, but you were getting used to it.

“Do you have anyone on your team competent enough to work on the OS for a new console?”

His sudden question caught you off guard. “Tadashi.” Definitely. He was your best programmer.

“The man who was present when I came in?”

You shook your head before you realized that Kaiba wasn't looking at you. “No, that was Minoru." You refrained from including Minoru's status as an intern. "Tadashi is the best programmer on my team. He's the one who helped out with the testing earlier today.”

Kaiba didn't say anything else, but you were curious. “Is there a new console in development?”

“Not yet.” Kaiba's response was clipped, and you had a feeling that that was all you were going to get from him on the subject. New products were always interesting. The best products that came out of Kaiba Corp. were almost always things that Kaiba built. You rarely had the opportunity to look at any prototypes, but it was always impressive to think that Kaiba was solely responsible for a majority of them.

You had to leave work earlier than you wanted, mostly because you had to get home and change before you went to the bar or everyone would tease you for showing up in your work clothes again. You took your time packing up. You felt like you should extend another invitation to Kaiba, but you were reluctant to actually say it. “Mr. Kaiba?”

He looked up at you.

“Are you sure you don't want to join everyone at the bar? It'll be fun, and you are technically part of both departments since you're our boss.” It might make everyone nervous to have him there, but you felt like it would be rude to leave without extending a formal invite.

“Where are you meeting?”

You frowned. You knew where the bar was but you couldn't recall the name. “It's about a block from here... The Speedy Turtle I think?”

“No.”

“Oh.” You didn't know why you were disappointed. It would just end badly if Kaiba went. Nobody would be able to relax with him around. “Well I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Kaiba.”

He smirked. “Tomorrow is Saturday.”

Wow. You felt stupid. “It's been a long week.” You laughed awkwardly. Kaiba simply stared at you. “Well, um, goodnight, Mr. Kaiba.” You'd completely fulfilled your quota of foolishness for the day. You grabbed your bag and left without another word.

Once you got home, you changed into something casual. You couldn't wear your work clothes, but that didn't mean that you had to dress up. Since you were the head of your department, you felt like you should present a decent front even if you weren't at work. So anything short or low cut was out of the question.

Besides, you weren't going to the bar to get attention.

When you arrived at the bar, you noted that Minoru had decided to show up. You slid into the seat next to him with a smile. “I see you decided to drink with everyone tonight.”

Your name was called, interrupting whatever Minoru was about to say, and you turned to see Arai. “Don't forget about that drink you owe me!” he called.

“One minute. You aren't going to die of thirst!” You rolled your eyes and turned back to Minoru. “He's such an ass. What were you going to say?”

“I, uh, could I buy you a drink?” he stammered.

“Thanks, but you don't need to buy me a drink just because I'm your boss.” You reached out and ruffled his hair. Then Arai started calling your name again. “Enjoy yourself! Maybe we'll talk later.” You stood. “Geez Arai, are you sure you aren't drunk already?” He was sitting with someone you didn't know, so it was probably someone from animation. You sat down with them. “What'll you have?” you asked Arai. “A Jackass?”

Arai just called over a waitress as his friend chortled. The waitress took all your drink orders. After she walked away, Arai brought out a pack of cards.

“You play cards girlie?” his friend asked.

“Yeah.” You didn't just play. You dominated, and you were going to beat him at whatever game they wanted to play just because he called you _girlie_.

“Good, you can take Kenta's spot then.”

Kenta... right, your old boss. Now that you thought about it, he did tend to play cards with Arai at these things.

“So what'll we play first? Since you're new you can pick the game?” Arai continued to shuffle the cards.

You grinned. “Do you guys know how to play Egyptian War?”

They were both familiar with the game so Arai began to divide the cards. 

“Arai, you were friends with Kenta weren't you?” you casually inquired.

“I still am. He knows where all the best strip clubs are.” Arai placed a card down. “Why?”

“Just curious.” It explained why Arai wasn't as friendly with you as he was with your old boss. It had nothing to do with you like you first thought. You just weren't actually friends with him, and your old boss was, so it was a given that he would be nicer to him.

Doubles. You slapped your hand down on the pile and claimed all of the cards.

“He blames you, you know,” Arai commented. “Kenta thinks you tricked Kaiba and took his job.”

You were instantly defensive. “He got himself fired. I didn't do anything.”

Arai shrugged. “I know that. Honestly, who thinks anyone can trick Kaiba? I'm just saying.” He put down three cards but none of them were face cards and his friend took the pile. Then his attention was back on you. “He's still bitter. So watch out.”

You put a card down. “I think I'll be fine. I mean he's not going to do anything right?”

“I don't think so, but you probably don't want to run into him on the street.”

Doubles again. You slapped the pile and took it.

“How are you so good at this?”

You grinned at the man who'd called you _girlie_. “I was a tester before I was a programmer. I have fast reflexes.”

“Damn. You're going to be a better player than Kenta.” He nudged Arai. “We probably shouldn't bet money until we know what she can do.”

You were about to tell them that you would enjoy taking their money, but some of the other guys were beginning to get noisy. You turned in your seat to see one of the guys on your team doing a row of shots with someone from animation. The drinking contests had officially started.

It was good that tomorrow was Saturday. Everyone was going to be too hung over to do any work.

“Should we join in?” Arai suggested. “Head of the department against head of the department? It's only right.”

You laughed. “No way. I don't get drunk, and I think you'd beat me.”

It was so loud in the bar, that you almost didn't hear your phone when it started ringing. You looked down at the caller ID, but it was a blocked number so you almost didn't bother answering it. “Hello?”

“The bar sounds extremely noisy.”

You almost dropped the phone in shock. “Mr. Kaiba?! Are you here?” You began looking around.

“Don't be ridiculous.”

At the same moment Arai's eyes widened. “What about Kaiba being here?”

“You commented on the noise so I just assumed...” You feverishly shook your head at Arai and mouthed, “False alarm.”

“There's a lot of background noise on the call.” He made it sound like the answer was obvious. “I called to offer you the opportunity to work tomorrow. I've noticed that your department mysteriously has more work done on Monday morning than they did on the previous Friday night and I can only assume it's because of your work ethic. I'll be in my office most of the day. Send me an email if you decide that you want to come in.”

“I, uh.” You didn't know how to respond to his offer, but that was okay because Kaiba had already hung up. 


	10. Level 2.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the long wait, but I do hope you guys enjoy this chapter. It doesn't have any virtual world, but Kaiba is in the entire thing. :D That's always good right? (Eh. Some relationship development basically.) Virtual world and crazy times return next chapter, I think. 
> 
> Enjoy~

On Saturday morning, you had to use your Kaiba Corp. access card to get into the building. Since the company was closed to the public for the weekend, only employees with weekend access could get into the building. You were a little worried that your ID wouldn't work, but after you swiped it against the reader, the light flashed green and the door's lock clicked open. You reached for the handle of the door and pulled it open as an automated voice told you to report to Mr. Kaiba's office.

You stood in front of the building, holding the door open, as you stared at the speaker above the keycard slot. This was your first time using the outside ID reader, the building wasn't locked during normal business hours, so you didn't know if that was a customized response or something that everyone had to do when they came to work during off hours. Somehow, you didn't think that Kaiba actually wanted to see every single employee who had clearance to work on the weekends. Especially since quite a few people probably had weekend shifts.

Like that security guard who was currently staring at you.

“Miss, do you have some ID?”

He probably thought that you didn't belong in Kaiba Corp. and possibly believed that you were crazy. You couldn't blame him. You walked into the building, letting the door shut behind you, and gave him your Kaiba Corp. ID to stare at while you fished in your purse for your license. Once you pulled that out, he took it and compared it to your Kaiba Corp. ID before studying your face.

He passed both back with a nod. “You clear.”

You put them back in the same location of your purse just in case you had to pull them out later. Then you took a few steps forward before turning back around. The guard wasn't paying any attention to you anymore, but he might be able to answer your question. “Hey. The speaker outside told me to report to Mr. Kaiba's office. Will my ID let me up there?”

The security guard guffawed. “Mr. Kaiba wants to see you on a Saturday? No wonder you were standing there staring into space! You should be able to get up to his office. Come back here if you have a problem.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, good luck with him.”

You just nodded and turned back toward the elevators. Your hand reached back into your purse. You weren't sure what you were thinking when you put your ID away when you still needed it for the elevator. That sort of absentmindedness wasn't good. Today you couldn't afford to space out like that.

It was nice to be able to just catch an elevator without having to fight over it. The elevators were all bigger than a standard elevator, but on weekday mornings, bodies stuffed into them until there wasn't even room to breathe. Today you had an entire elevator to yourself. It reminded you of all the times you left Kaiba Corp. around seven or eight. Except then the elevator was going down instead of up, and it was often dark outside.

You glanced at your phone, checking the time as the elevator climbed to the top floor. On a weekday, you would have been in your office working by now. You just couldn't wake up that early on a Saturday, but now, you were hoping that Kaiba wasn't expecting you earlier than this. He never actually gave you a time to show up today, just a general invitation to work in your office.

He wouldn't fire you for not showing up at the right time when he never actually told you when to show up, would he?

The answer was yes, yes he would, but it was unlikely. He could be irrational but only on rare occasions. So you just had to hope that he was in a good mood today. Not that this was your first time hoping for that. It was something most Kaiba Corp. employees wished for every morning, and you were no exception.

The elevator opened on the top floor, and you stepped out. You assumed that one of Kaiba's assistants would be working today, but you were mistaken. Nobody was present on the top floor, and Kaiba's door was wide open. You couldn't see into his office from your angle so you hesitantly moved toward the open doorway. Kaiba was at his desk, working on something at his computer, so you tapped on the door.

He looked up. “You've finally arrived.” He gestured toward the chair across from him. “Sit down.”

You were uncomfortable with his order. It was one thing when you thought he might just have a command to give you or a question about the game, but when he wanted you to actually sit down in his office, it couldn't be good.

At least you knew you weren't about to get fired. Kaiba never invited people to sit down before firing them.

“Did you need something from me, Mr. Kaiba?”

“Yes. I wanted you to look these over.” He picked up a folder and tossed it over to your side of his desk. He didn't bother looking at you and went back to working on his computer almost immediately.

You refused to let his lack of attention lower your guard. Kaiba was an observant man, and he didn't need to look directly at you to be able to read you. So you carefully slid a finger between the top and bottom of the folder before pushing it open. “Oh my...” Your composure evaporated as you realized what you were looking at. You snatched the first page off the pile and brought it closer to your face.

The carefully drawn picture stayed the same. “Is this...?”

Kaiba didn't respond to your incomplete question. You tore your eyes away from the paper to look at him. He was studying you, and he seemed amused by your behavior.

You held the first paper in one hand and reached down to grab the second paper with your other hand. It was another carefully drawn diagram. This time it had details about the internal processor and written ideas about what chips to use. You still couldn't believe it. The folder contained all of Kaiba's ideas on a future gaming device.

“Why...” You weren't even sure what to ask first. “You're letting me look at your designs for a prototype?” That couldn't be true. You didn't think anyone ever had the honor of seeing Kaiba's designs before he actually had a prototype built.

“I wanted to hear what you had to say about it.” Kaiba smirked. “The previous head of your department never had anything valuable to say.”

You snorted. That wasn't difficult to believe. You never had very much respect for your ex-boss' intelligence. His inability to provide Kaiba with any useful ideas was probably a factor in Kaiba's decision to fire him...

**This was a test!** You tried not to let your horror show on your face, but you probably failed. Kaiba was showing you his designs as a test. If you didn't understand them or have anything useful to say, he might think that you couldn't do your job properly.

“Should I take these down to my floor and look them over?” Possibly with a strong cup of coffee from the staff room. Since it was Saturday, you could probably make a pot and have it all to yourself.

“No. Those designs don't leave my office.”

Kaiba's growl nearly caused you to jump out of your seat. You could only nod as you looked back down at the papers in your hands. You placed them back in the folder, in exactly the same order, before quickly shuffling through all the pages. It was a small folder, and there weren't too many pages, but you would never be able to keep track of all this information if you didn't keep notes.

“Um, Mr. Kaiba?” His attention refocused on you. “Do you mind if I run down to my floor and grab some of my materials?” You needed your notebook, at least, and having your laptop wouldn't hurt either.

“Go ahead but leave everything here.”

You didn't know if _everything_ included your purse, but you weren't going to push your luck and ask him. So you grabbed your ID and left Kaiba's office. On your way down, you almost collapsed in the elevator. Seto Kaiba, an absolute genius, was asking you to look over his designs for a prototype. Looking over his designs was an honor that you would kill for. Except you were uncomfortable with the fact that he was going to judge you based on your comments. You wanted Kaiba to think positive things about you. It would be a little disappointing if he thought you were an idiot.

What if you couldn't think of anything to say? What if you couldn't even _understand_ his designs? You weren't stupid. You just didn't think that you were anywhere near intelligent enough to offer Seto Kaiba constructive ideas. You might be able to give him some intelligent compliments if you were lucky.

If you weren't, well, you might just fangirl all over his designs.

The moment the elevator opened on your floor, you hightailed it straight for the employee break room. You knew that you should probably grab your stuff and hurry back up to Kaiba's office, but you didn't want to go back there unarmed. So you quickly started a pot of coffee before dashing into your office to gather what you needed.

The coffee wasn't finished when you arrived back in the break room, so you had to stand around for an extra few minutes and wait for it. You probably could have made a smaller pot of coffee, but you had a feeling that Kaiba might appreciate a cup too.

While you poured two cups of coffee, you wondered how Kaiba took his coffee. You didn't know if he liked sugar or cream. You decided that it was better to just leave the coffee black rather than mix in anything he would dislike. You weren't trying to gain points from Kaiba by offering him a cup of coffee, but that didn't mean that you wanted him to yell at you.

Carrying all your work and two cups of coffee wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but you managed to pull it off. Unfortunately, Kaiba didn't look up when you reentered his office.

It wasn't something you would admit to anyone, but you wanted to impress him. You knew that balancing a lot of stuff wasn't the road to impressing Kaiba, but you still hoped that he would notice.

You placed a cup of coffee down in front of him. “I don't know how you like your coffee.”

He seemed surprised by the cup sitting in front of him. That expression only lasted a moment before it was replaced by suspicion. “Where did you get this?”

“I made a pot.” You held up your cup. “I just used the coffee maker in the employee room. Nothing complicated.”

He lifted the cup and studied it for a moment before putting it down on your side of the desk. “I don't drink bad coffee.”

“You haven't even tried it!” You would have held your outburst in if you could have. It wasn't like you _wanted_ to talk back to your boss. You just didn't know how he could turn down coffee without trying it.

Maybe the rumors weren't true and he didn't inhale coffee.

Now he was glaring at you, and you were still standing in front of his desk. You smothered the urge to run and tried to shrug it off. “Okay, then. I guess that means there's more coffee for me.” You looked down at the desk, breaking eye contact, and sat in the chair.

He didn't say anything as you began to go over the designs, and you weren't brave enough to look up at him.

Looking over his designs helped you forget how much Kaiba scared you. There was something about throwing yourself into your work that just made Kaiba less intimidating. It helped that you were used to working in the same room as him. He never spoke unless he needed to know something relevant to your department, and you often just forgot that he was there.

It was harder to forget about him while you were working at his desk, but the desk was massive and his designs were brilliant.

So you took notes. You wrote down any ideas that you had, kept track of anything that confused you, and somehow managed to come up with a few things you might change. By the time you were done looking over all of the details, your coffee cup was completely empty. You reached out for the cup that Kaiba had rejected earlier, but it wasn't there.

Surprised that you were grabbing air, you looked up and toward the other side of the desk. It was your first time looking at Kaiba since you'd sat down, and he was drinking the cup of coffee that you had brought him.

You weren't sure if he was even paying attention to what he was drinking. His concentration seemed to be completely focused on the reports sitting in front of him. You simply watched as he put the cup down to turn a page before glancing over at his computer. Then he looked up, and his eyes met your own. “Are you done?”

His question brought you back to your work as you decided against bringing up the coffee. “Yes.”

“And?” He was impatient, probably because he wanted to get back to whatever else he was doing.

“Would you like to see my notes?” You held them out for him.

He grabbed your notes and began to read through them. They weren't the most extensive notes in the world, and now you were wondering if you should have spent more time on them. Kaiba's opinion counted for everything, and unlike your old boss, he wasn't an idiot. Kaiba wouldn't be impressed by anything that was less than brilliant.

It didn't take him very long to read through your notes, but you were on edge the entire time, and it felt like he spent hours going over your ideas. Could you get fired for having bad notes? Yes, yes you could.

Kaiba raised an eyebrow. “Your idea about a data transfer between consoles is intriguing, but how do you propose we keep the option from becoming a security threat?”

You bit your bottom lip. He had a point. You didn't know if his question was a genuine question, or if he was simply questioning your intelligence, but you decided to do your best to answer it. “We could design security protocols and limit the data that can be transferred. The idea is that users would be able to send their saved game data to their friends, so we can limit it to just save files.”

He nodded as if he was pleased with your answer, and you hoped that wasn't your imagination. “Do you still believe that Tadashi would be able to handle this project?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” You nodded enthusiastically.

He just hummed. It seemed like he was about to say something. Then he was interrupted by a knock.

“Mr. Kaiba?” Kaiba looked over your shoulder, and you turned to see a woman standing in the doorway. “I brought the lunch you requested?”

“Bring it over here.”

You assumed that she was probably his new secretary. You’d heard that he fired his old one. Unfortunately, you hadn’t won the pool. You were off by a week. Some guy from accounting was two days closer than you were.

Someone from accounting always won. It was unfair.

The woman placed the bag on the table. “I ordered your usual fillet mignon sandwich. I ordered a vegetarian sandwich for your guest, since you didn’t give me any details.”

With that attitude, she was going to be fired before two weeks were up. You just knew it. The pool had just opened, and you weren’t planning on entering, but you were _so_ going to have the winning guess this time.

“Then you should have ordered more than one option for her. At least a vegetarian and a basic meat like chicken. I shouldn’t have to tell you how to do your job.”

Yep. Kaiba was already annoyed, and the girl didn’t seem properly intimidated. She wouldn’t stick around for very long at all.

“Do you need anything else, Mr. Kaiba?” She didn’t sound like she cared, and you wondered why she was even here.

You hoped she wasn’t trying some strange ploy to catch Kaiba’s attention. Those secretaries usually had to be dragged out by security, and Kaiba was always in a horrible mood afterward. Not that you could blame him, it would be irritating to have a stranger scream that they would love you forever, but he always managed to fire a bunch of people after that.

You didn’t want to get fired because Kaiba was annoyed with his fangirls.

“Do you want a vegetarian sandwich or shall I send her out for something else?”

At first, you didn’t even realize that Kaiba was speaking to you. The idea that he might have ordered his secretary to buy you lunch too didn’t even occur to you. Sure, he had lunch brought to you every day for a while, but that had stopped with the new secretary, and you honestly didn’t expect it on a weekend. You just assumed that his brother was coming by or that maybe he had a lunch meeting coming up. “Vegetarian is fine.” Words seemed to escape you as you stared at the bag. When had he ordered lunch and why had he ordered food for you? Was he expecting you to pay him back? “Um… How much—”

“Go check my messages and let me know if any of them are important. You’re dismissed.”

The secretary turned and left without any response. You weren’t sure if she was stupid or just crazy.

“Close the door!” Kaiba ordered after she cleared the doorway. She slammed it shut.

At least it didn’t seem like he was about to take her behavior out on you. You tried to ask your question again. “How much should I pay you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kaiba pulled out the sandwiches, looked down at the markings, and dropped the one reading “Veggie” on your side of the desk.

You weren’t sure what he meant by that. So you simply stared at the sandwich, hoping that maybe it would clear up your confusion.

“Are you going to eat or not?”

“I, uh, yeah.” You looked at the man sitting across from you. His expression was difficult to read, but for once, you found it easy to stare straight into his blue eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Kaiba.”

“Whatever.” He broke eye contact first. “Get back to work.”

You reflexively looked back down at your computer, before you remembered that you were just talking to Kaiba about the prototype. You couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across your face as you looked back at Kaiba. He seemed to be staring holes into the reports in front of him. It was unlike him to forget what he was just doing, and it was somehow endearing.

He wasn’t a machine.

You almost asked him if you should go back to your own office but decided against it. It would have been the sort of teasing question that you asked a friend, and teasing Kaiba felt inappropriate. So you checked your work email as you ate your sandwich. Kaiba had bought it for you, and it would have been rude to not eat with him.

It was a surprisingly good sandwich too. It was nice that he wouldn’t let you pay him for it, because you had a feeling that it was an _expensive_ sandwich. From the wrapping to the foreign and unfamiliar ingredients, everything about the sandwich screamed that it was from an expensive bistro somewhere.

Of course, there was always the chance that this was getting deducted from your paycheck. “Mr. Kaiba?”

“What?” He didn’t even look up at you, and he sounded annoyed.

“You don’t need to have your secretary start bringing me lunch again. I’ve been fine for the past few weeks.”

“What?!” His eyes were narrowed at you, and he sounded angry.

You didn’t know what you said that had set him off, but you needed to proceed with caution. “It’s a nice gesture. Really. But I’m capable of getting my own—”

“Stop. You haven’t been receiving lunch? My secretary _should_ have—” He stopped talking for a moment. It seemed like he was simply too angry to speak. “I’m firing that stupid woman. I won’t be charging you for lunch anymore.” Then he muttered something under his breath.

“It’s okay. You don’t need to have lunch brought to me, Mr. Kaiba.”

His glare ended that argument before it even began. He reached for the intercom, and you wondered if it was too late to get in on the pool.  


	11. Level 2.4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have had this halfway done for ages. I had to scrap parts of it and then restart it. It has been the hardest of all my stories to pick up. I hope you guys enjoy this update! :)
> 
> I think we'll be moving into level three soon...

Somehow, you ended up working from Kaiba’s office for the next few hours after he fired his secretary. At first, you had been too nervous about inciting his wrath to draw his attention to you, but after a while, you found that you were too caught up in your work to want to leave.

Neither of you said much, but this wasn’t your first time working together, and you were comfortable with the silence. A few times, you were tempted to ask him his opinion about your code, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You were too worried that he would think that your question was stupid.

You admired him. Ever since he’d given you access to his code for the Legendary Warriors game, you had been secretly fangirling all over his code. He was sixteen or eighteen or something like that when he wrote that game, and he did most of the work on his own. That was impressive. When you were in high school, you barely knew the first thing about coding.

So you couldn’t bring yourself to ask him any questions. You wanted his opinion but not enough to risk his disdain.

So you worked, shooting glances at him every so often until you forgot that he was there. Once you forgot that your boss was sitting right there, it was easy to focus on your work. At that point, you lost track of time. So instead of leaving once you were sure that his anger had subsided, you ended up sitting with him for a few hours.

The game was on the second level, and your team was almost done. You knew that the game was ahead of schedule for now, but you couldn’t ignore the voice in your head that said it would be oh-so-easy to fall _behind_ schedule. So you took on some of the coding, even though you should have been relegating parts of it out to your team.

The bosses, for example, had been your baby before your promotion. You did all the general boss class coding. So when the time came to write the Thunder Boss, you decided it would be easy to do it yourself. Why make another programmer spend time understanding your class when you already knew it forwards and backwards?

When Mokuba walked in, he greeted his brother, startling you. If Mokuba was surprised to see you sitting at his brother’s desk, it didn’t show as he smiled and greeted you, too.

“Hi, um…” You still weren’t sure what you call him other than Mr. Kaiba, which you remembered that he didn’t want to be called. “It’s nice to see you again, sir.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You know you can call me Mokuba, right?”

“Oh.” You didn’t feel like that would be appropriate at all. But who were you to argue with the Vice President? “Okay.” You smiled up at Mokuba. You would just continue to avoid addressing him by any name at all.

“So, are you coming with us?” Mokuba asked.

You looked at Kaiba and then back at Mokuba. “I’m sorry?”

“She’s not,” Kaiba said.

His tone left no room for argument as far as you were concerned, but Mokuba was less impressed. “Why not? Are you worried I’m going to steal her away?”

You glanced back at Kaiba and looked away the moment you realized he was glaring at his brother. He refused to pull punches, even for family. You turned your attention to Mokuba, wondering how he would handle that glare, and you were surprised to find him smirking at his older brother.

Well, this very awkward staring contest was your cue to leave. You checked the time and realized that it was already past five in the afternoon. You hadn’t anticipated staying at Kaiba Corp for so long. “I should actually go home,” you said, hoping that interrupting the stare-off wouldn’t lead to someone deciding to fire you.

Mokuba focused his attention on you. “No! Have dinner with us!”

You glanced back at Kaiba. He was the one who didn’t want you to go. “I really should head home. Maybe another time?”

Mokuba pouted. “See what you did, Seto? Now she’ll never eat with us!”

“Drop it, Mokuba.”

You packed up your stuff as quickly as possible after that. Kaiba seemed testy, and Mokuba was sullen. You still weren’t sure why Mokuba had been inviting you to… dinner? And you really didn’t understand the exchange that had happened between the Kaiba brothers.

“I’ll see you on Monday, Mr. Kaiba.” You smiled at him, and he nodded back at you, which was really the best you could hope for. “It was nice seeing you again, Mokuba.” You probably drew out Mokuba’s name a little too much, but it was hard to say.

“I’m sure we’ll see more of each other,” Mokuba said with a cheshire grin.

You left without another word. What could you have said to that?

 

\-----

Mokuba turned out to be the first Kaiba you saw on Monday. He came into your department, smiling at everyone even as they freaked out over the sight of him.

You stood and approached him. “How can I help you today, sir?”

“Mokuba,” he reminded you with a half smile.

You shrugged and smiled, hoping he wouldn’t press the issue. You weren’t about to call him Mokuba in front of Kaiba Corp. employees. It wasn’t appropriate, and you didn’t want any rumors to start. Some of the other employees in your department felt that you were too young and inexperienced for the lead position. If you seemed too familiar with either Kaiba, you knew that would start rumors that you’d done something with one or both of them to get the promotion.

Mokuba seemed to understand that you weren’t going to say anything further. “I wanted to check the game out. Seto told me that it’s looking good.”

“Really?” That didn’t sound right. “Mr. Kaiba said that?”

Mokuba laughed. “Well, maybe not exactly like that… But the way he talks about it sounds like he’s pleased.”

You smiled, feeling like a cat that was getting scratched in just the right place. Maybe Mokuba was just trying to compliment you and none of this was true, but the idea that Kaiba liked the progress so far on the game… well, that made you feel oddly satisfied. “If you’d like to go into the game again, I can oversee it.”

“Actually…” He smiled, stepping just a little bit too close to you. “I think I’d like to go into the game with you. Seto gets to have your expert opinion when he goes into the game, why don’t I?”

Mokuba was laying it on a little thick, but you felt yourself blushing anyway. “Okay. Let me get the VR system up and running.” You turned away from Mokuba, hoping that your face wasn’t noticeably red, and started up the computer. You called Minoru over and asked him to oversee the system as you went into the game with Mokuba.

“Are you going to be okay?” Minoru whispered, glancing at Mokuba.

“Yes. We haven’t done much testing in the virtual reality lately. I think it’ll be okay.” You turned to Mokuba. “We have the second level loaded into the game right now. Is that okay or did you want to start from the beginning of the game?”

“Yeah. Whatever is easiest for you.” Mokuba shrugged.

You double checked that the file was the correct one before moving out of the way, allowing Minoru to sit at the computer. “It’s ready to go.”

You moved over to the secondary testing chair, letting Mokuba have the primary one, and put the helmet on your head. You held your thumb up, letting Minoru know that you were ready.

A moment later, you found yourself standing on a cloud pathway. You scooted away from the edge until you were in the middle of the path. The fairy level made you nervous. You knew all about the invisible wall that kept you from being able to fall off the clouds to your death, but even then, you worried that you might accidentally find the one hole in the wall and fall through it. Yes, it was neurotic, but while testing this level for the first time, you had made the mistake of looking over the edge of the path, and the ground was a long way down.

Mokuba Kaiba had no reservations about it. He ran ahead of you, keeping up with the trio of fairies who had arrived to escort you, and he kept looking over the edge of the clouds to the world below.

In order to keep up with him, you kept reminding yourself that this was a virtual reality. If it were real, you would fall right through the clouds, obviously.

The fairies led the two of you into the city and straight to the Wingweaver. She stretched out her six wings again as she stood up from her throne. “This is so cool!” Mokuba exclaimed, and you had to smile at him.

His enthusiasm for the game was contagious. It was fun playing with him. You often forgot to look at things from a programming perspective and ended up just enjoying the game.

The Wingweaver descended the steps so that she was almost in front of the two of you. The entire time, her lips were moving, but since there wasn’t any sound, Mokuba didn’t know what she was saying.

“She’s telling us about all the problems she’s been having with the thunder monsters,” you informed Mokuba. “She’s going to ask us to help her in her war against them. If we agree to help, she’ll help with defeating the Dark Magician.”

“Oh!” Mokuba looked at you. “What do you suggest?”

You shrugged. “I don’t like shooting at fairies, so I prefer going after the thunder monsters. You have to fight at least one of them though.”

He looked back at the Wingweaver and nodded. “We’ll help you!”

She smiled at both of you, and then she reached out, extending her hand to the side. At her fingertips a portal opened up. It started as a small black circle and stretched out until it was tall enough for her to pass through without slouching. Her wings would be able to pass through as well if she had intended to enter it, which she didn’t.

Once the portal was done growing, she retracted her hand and stepped away from it. She gestured, indicating that you and Mokuba should pass through the portal. You knew that right now, if she had a voice, she would be explaining that the portal led to thunder territory. She wanted the two of you to find and assassinate her enemy, Hamon.

Then two shotguns appeared in her hands. She held them out.

“She’s giving us a gift,” you explained as you grabbed one. “She hopes they’ll help us kill her enemies.”

“Nice!” Mokuba grabbed the other shotgun and waved it around. His little victory dance over getting a new weapon made you think about how different he was from his brother. Mr. Kaiba would have studied the shotgun, looking for flaws.

You smiled and stepped up to the portal. “We have to go through here,” you told Mokuba.

His smile disappeared as he made a face of distaste. “That doesn’t seem safe.”

“It’s just a game.” You grinned at him and grabbed his hand. “C’mon.” You pulled him through the portal with you. You didn’t even feel anything as you passed through the black hole. Suddenly, you were in a new location.

You looked around. The hole was nowhere to be found, but Mokuba was still with you. You released his hand, grinning at him. “Welcome to Thunder Territory.” You gestured to the forest surrounding the two of you. “It’s supposed to feel warmer than the clouds, but we haven’t worked that out yet.”

Mokuba hopped over to the edge of the path, looking at a bush. “Can I touch it?”

“Yes?” You were tempted to say it wouldn’t bite, but Mokuba was still your boss.

He reached into the bush, rubbing the leaves and grinning. “It all feels so real.” 

“I hope so.” You looked around for any monsters. The starting monsters in this area were small and easy to miss until they attacked. Then you heard a rustle, and your attention snapped to Mokuba. “I wouldn’t go into the bushes. It’s more dangerous off the path.”

“I’m not scared.” He smirked, and for a moment, you were looking right at the older Kaiba. Then he turned away and took off into the bushes.

You watched him go. Of course, you should have expected Mokuba to be difficult in some way. He wouldn’t be a Kaiba if he didn’t just do whatever he wanted. After a moment of internal debate, you took off after him.

“Minoru, what time is it?” you inquired, hoping that Mokuba would have to leave soon.

“It’s almost noon.”

The voice-in wasn’t localized, so Mokuba would have heard that even though he was out of sight. You waited for a moment, wondering if he would ask Minoru to stop the game. When nothing happened, you kept moving in the direction that he’d gone.

Then you froze as a buzzing noise caught your attention. You looked around, not seeing anything until you glanced up. There was a large green snake in the tree next to you. Its body sparked with electricity as it slithered along a tree branch. Choking back a scream, you backed away from it, holding up your shotgun. The gun was heavier than the pistol and harder to aim up, but the snake was almost above your head. You didn’t have time to change weapons. BAM! You fired and watched the snake fall off the branch.

You pointed the shotgun at the ground, hoping the snake was dead. It lit up with a fizzing noise, and you fired again. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! Click. Click. Shoot. You needed to reload. You went through the process of reloading, your arm starting to hurt with the weight of the gun, and stared at the snake as it pixilated.

Maybe firing every bullet possible into it had been unnecessary.

You grabbed the bag that the snake left behind. It gave you some bullets for your shotgun. The bullets disappeared as the total number listed on the gun counted up.

You looked around, wondering where Mokuba disappeared. You couldn’t remember what direction you came from or what direction you were heading, and the shotgun was starting to feel too heavy for you. “Pistol,” you said. The shotgun pixelated, and your pistol appeared, floating in front of you. You grabbed it.

“Sure. Give me a moment.” Minoru’s voice surprised you, making you freeze.

“Yes?” you asked, wondering what was wrong.

“Mr. Kaiba needs to leave. Are you ready for me to stop the game?”

“Yes. Go for it.” After a moment, the trees around you starting falling apart. Then you found yourself looking at the dark inside of your helmet. You pulled your helmet off your head, and you couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief. You loved the game, but those snakes were the worst, and you had not been looking forward to running into more of them.

Mokuba grinned at you as he sat up from the chair. “That was awesome!”

You smiled back. “I should hope so. We’re almost done with that level.”

He put the helmet down on the chair and checked his phone. “I hate to game and go, but I have a meeting soon.” He looked directly at you. “I’ll see you, later?”

“Yes?” you said, unsure what he was talking about. The two of you worked in the same company so it was likely he would see you again.

He left without elaborating, and you briefly wondered if you should have asked what he was talking about. Then you checked the time and decided that it didn’t matter. You were behind on everything you wanted to get done today.

 

\-----

When Kaiba came into your department at the end of the day, you smiled at him. You were the only one left, and you had just cornered and destroyed a difficult bug in the code. So you were feeling pleased with yourself.

Then you realized that Kaiba was fuming. He practically had smoke coming out of his ears as he stormed over to you.

You wanted to stand and place yourself closer to his level, but you couldn’t move. Kaiba’s stare kept you frozen in place.

“What were you thinking, letting my brother go into the virtual reality like that?”

Well, you had thought that Mokuba was an adult and your boss so you would let him do whatever he wanted.

That answer would probably get you fired. You thought your words over carefully.

Kaiba’s anger seemed to magnify as he waited for a response. “Do I need to fire you and hire someone who actually understands the dangers of going into a virtual reality during development?!”

“No, Mr. Kaiba.” Your reaction was pure instinct. “I mean… I’m sorry. It’s just, your brother is my boss, too, isn’t he?”

“I am the only boss who matters,” Kaiba snarled. “Now, do you have enough sense to ensure that future testing is done responsibly, or do I have to fire you?”

“I’m sorry.” Your words didn’t sound sincere, so you hurried to move past the apology. “We’re going to start a new level soon. It’s unlikely we’ll do anymore testing in the actual virtual reality for a while.”

“Good. Keep me updated on all testing moving forward.”

Without another word, Kaiba stormed out of your department.

You took a deep breath. It was time to go home. You could feel your heart racing and knew that you would be unable to focus after that sort of treatment.

You took the time to ensure your work was saved properly before shutting down your computer. Then you did a quick lap of the department to ensure everything was in order. After that, you gathered your stuff and left for the night, hoping that you wouldn’t run into anyone on your way home.

Having a friendly conversation would be too hard for your fried nerves.

When you got home, your cute little Magicat was sitting right by door. She meowed a greeting and began to rub against your ankles. You picked her up and carried her in one arm as you moved through your apartment, putting down your stuff and kicking off your shoes. She purred, letting you know how happy she was to see you, and you scratched her behind her ears.

You fed her first so she wouldn’t trip you as you made your own dinner. She purred the entire time, enjoying her meal, still grateful about the fact that she was getting regular meals. Then you changed into something comfortable so your work clothes wouldn’t get covered in food.

After changing, you opened your closet, intending to hang your jacket, and then you caught sight of the snake. You flailed your arms, screaming, as you jumped back from your closet, searching for something to use as a weapon. What you wouldn't give for a baseball bat right now.

You grabbed a shoe and threw it… Only to realize that you were screaming at a scarf.

Still feeling shaken, you took a deep breath and studied the scarf. It really was just a scarf.

One thing was for sure, Seto Kaiba could never know about this.


	12. Level 2.5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, hello! 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this update! Please let me know if it feels off. Kaiba and the reader are spending a bit more time together than you see because, well, it would be boring filler to write all the times they sit and work in silence. So I'm hoping that this chapter doesn't seem like it comes out of nowhere. 
> 
> Also, while reading over the most recent two chapters to ensure this would flow properly, I found a few really terrible typos/errors. You guys let me get away with murder, I swear. D: 
> 
> Enjoy~

You glared at your computer. Your elbows were sitting on your desk, and you had your head in your hands, your fingers rubbing at your eyes. The string of letters and numbers blurred as you tried to will the bug to just pop out of the program on its own.

_What had you done wrong?_

You tried commenting pieces out, bit-by-bit, testing the boss over and over to figure out which part of your code had gone wrong. Nothing seemed to fix it, and you were ready to just delete the entire code and start from scratch.

_But all the hours that would waste!_

If you were honest with yourself, you knew that you should be doing so many other things. This bug was not your bug to fix. Yes, all of the code for this boss was your design, so you felt obligated to fix it, but really, that just meant you were obligated to let someone else take a look at it.

You couldn’t bring yourself to ask someone else to help. It was too embarrassing.

You saved your code, knowing that your random edits wouldn’t do anything to help, but needing to get away from the code. You loaded the code into your computer’s simulator and entered the boss fight.

And Hamon, Lord of Stupid, curled up into a defensive ball and refused to move… yet again. You shot every single weapon at him. You ran circles around the room. You let your character just stand in front of the monster, completely defenseless. No matter what you did, the stupid bird stayed in a ball with its wings wrapped around its stupid body.

_How could you screw up the AI that badly?_

You could just imagine what Kaiba would say if he heard about this. What a novice, writing code that failed to function!

“WHAT?” you snarled, as someone said your name and interrupted your work. You imagined lasers shooting out of your eyes as you turned to look at the interloper. Identifying the man as someone from marketing, your glare sharpened. Marketing didn’t belong here. Not at this stage.

The marketing pleb frowned at you. “Mr. Kaiba told me to talk to you about the teaser video we’re making for the upcoming convention.”

He must be new. “No, you have the wrong department. Animation is two floors down.” You turned away from him, already done with the conversation.

“Animation already gave us everything we need from them.”

Your attention snapped back to the man. You had to smother the urge to shoot his sneering face. Not that you had a gun, but oh if you did… “Kaiba knows where we are in development. We don’t have anything for you. Gameplay sequences will have to wait.”

“That isn’t what we heard from Mr. Kaiba.” He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Should I tell him that we weren’t able to get anything from your team then?”  

“I’ll tell him myself.” He couldn’t threaten you with Kaiba. You gave the man a once over, failing to place a name to him. “Who are you anyway?”

He introduced himself before leaving with a pointed threat to talk to Kaiba, and you didn’t bother committing his name to memory. It was unlikely that he would speak to Kaiba. Most employees preferred not to interact with him and treated Kaiba as a last resort. You didn’t know when you stopped thinking that way, but after spending evenings working with the man, you at least felt confident that you could speak to him without getting fired.

You glared at the stupid boss. It was still curled up in a ball on your screen. Maybe you should let someone else take a look at it? It felt like giving up, but you had so much that you needed to do. There were reports that needed to be done before Kaiba got on your case about turning things in on time. You didn’t want him to have any reason to take the new promotion away.

Even if the reports seemed like a waste of time.

You copied your code to the shared files before you could change your mind. Then you sent an email to Tadashi asking him to look it over when he had a chance. You scanned the floor, and everyone seemed to be working, so you locked your computer and grabbed your keycard.

The marketing team’s demands gave you a good reason to try to schedule a meeting with Kaiba. So you took the elevator up to the top floor, watching people get on and off at all the floors in between. At the top floor, you weren’t the only one to get off the elevator, so you waited for your turn to speak to Kaiba’s secretary.

Once it was your turn, you smiled at her. She was a new face, and you weren’t quite sure of her name yet. “Is he free?” You pointed at Kaiba’s door.

“Oh, hm.” She looked down at her computer. “He said he’s not to be disturbed unless it’s important…”

It was probably too much to hope for him to magically be free right when you wanted to speak to him. “That’s fine. Can you get me onto his schedule for today at all? I need maybe twenty minutes, tops.”

“Let me see…” She grabbed her mouse and began clicking around on her computer. “No, he’s booked all day. I think the earliest he has an opening is the end of the week…”

You stared at her for a moment, not expecting to have to wait so long to get an official meeting with Kaiba. “That’s okay then. I’ll just email him.”

“Are you sure?”

You waved her off. “It’s okay. Have a nice day!” You would probably see Kaiba after work at some point before the week was up. It would be quicker to speak with him then. You just wanted to schedule an official meeting for this.

You checked your email on your phone as you waited for the elevator to work its way back to the top floor. Kaiba Corp. really needed more than two employee elevators. You wondered if you could keep track of how much time you wasted waiting for it and make a case for at least one more. Or at the very least, maybe Kaiba would let you use his?

No, your time probably wasn’t that important to him.

Once you were in the elevator, you began composing a quick email to Kaiba, asking if you could expect him to come down to your department after working hours were over. Your first draft asked him to come work with you this evening, but that felt too forward, so you edited it until it sounded more like an inquiry.

Tadashi had emailed you at some point, letting you know he would have time to look at the code this afternoon. You sent him a quick “thanks” and threw yourself into your other work. Kaiba needed official progress updates on the game as well as a projection on when you would finish major development milestones.

The day seemed to fly by as you tried to finish your supervisor work so that you could get back to working on the game itself. Before you knew it, the department cleared out for lunch, leaving you with a mostly empty floor all to yourself.

“I knew I’d find you here!” Mokuba stormed over to you. “Don’t you ever leave your desk?”

“Well, I do sleep at home, you know.” You were used to hearing this from your coworkers, and the snarky response just fell out of your mouth. “Mr. Kaiba,” you added to the end, trying to make the snark somewhat polite.

“What do I have to do to get you to call me Mokuba?”

There was nothing he could do that would convince you to call him by his given name. The younger Kaiba was still your boss and a wildcard at that. Everyone knew that Mokuba Kaiba was the nice one, but when you had someone like Seto Kaiba, anyone was considered nice in comparison. If you were honest, you felt more comfortable with the older Kaiba.

It wouldn’t be a good idea to delve too deep into that thought however.

“Can I help you with something?” you asked, changing the subject.

Mokuba grinned at you. “I’ll wear you down eventually.”

You stared at him, unsure how to respond to that. Luckily, he didn’t wait for a response.

“Have lunch with me?”

 _No, thank you._ “I’m sorry, uh, sir. I have a lot to do today.”

Mokuba sighed. “You’re just as bad as Seto. I think the two of you may be a bad influence on each other.”

“Excuse me?” You felt offended, but you weren’t sure if that was appropriate.

“I hate to do this,” Mokuba said, ignoring your interjection. “You and I need to have a meeting. So we can either have a working lunch together, or I can put something on your schedule.” He smirked, reminding you of his brother and causing your stomach to buzz with nerves. “Trust me when I say I can pick an inconvenient time to schedule a mandatory meeting with you.”

Ouch. You knew when you were beat. “May I have a moment to save my work?”

“Sure.” Mokuba’s smirk morphed into a grin now that he’d won. “Take your time.”

Yeah, no hurry for him. What did he even do around here anyway? You frowned, hoping that your irritation with him wouldn’t show. As you finished the bit you were working on and saved your work, you reminded yourself that Mokuba Kaiba was still your boss.

Once you turned back to Mokuba, you found him messing around on his cell phone. You waited for a moment, not wanting to interrupt him, before telling him that you were ready.

“Great!” He didn’t look up from the screen on his phone. “Do you mind if I drive?” When he didn’t get a response, he looked up at you. “I mean, if you want to drive, that’s okay, too… but I’d have to give you directions…”

“That’s fine, but I assumed we’d eat in the cafeteria?” The Kaiba Corp. cafe area was a little pricy, but the food there wasn’t bad. You couldn’t imagine Kaiba eating it, but Mokuba didn’t seem as snobby. Maybe you were wrong?

“Seto and I can’t eat there. It makes people nervous.”

You had to concede his point. The two brothers could cause even the braver employees to leave the room. Better safe than jobless. “I don’t know if I have time to eat out really.”

“I’ve got reservations, and you and I have business to discuss.” Mokuba offered his arm out to you. “Trust me when I say you won’t regret eating lunch with me.”

You didn’t have a choice about eating with him, but you felt like you had a choice when it came to taking his arm. “I’ll hold you to that.” You grabbed your bag and led the way over to the elevator. You checked the time on your way over, tempted to set an alarm of some sort. Lunch lasted an hour for the most part, but you worked on a salary and didn’t need to clock out. So in theory, you could take a longer lunch, especially if it happened to be a working lunch with your boss.

You would prefer to be back before your team returned from their lunches, but Mokuba didn’t seem like he was concerned with what you wanted at the moment.

The elevator dinged. The doors opened, and Mokuba gestured for you to go in first. You took a place off to the side, knowing you’d be in the elevator all the way down. Then you watched as people shifted away from Mokuba, not wanting to catch his attention. It didn’t make a difference. He immediately greeted someone, turning his attention away from you.

You ignored his conversation and started reading emails on your phone. The elevator would take a while to get to the first floor, stopping at nearly every floor along the way to let people on or off.

You felt a hand on your back and hopped forward, looking back to find Mokuba grinning at you. “It’s our stop,” he said, moving forward to put a hand out to keep the doors from closing.

You slid your phone back into your bag and stepped out of the elevator. Mokuba followed close behind you, his hand finding a place back on your back. You didn’t like the familiarity of the movement, but it was hard to think of a polite way to tell him to give you some space.

He led you out to his car, and you told yourself that he didn’t mean anything by it. It was just you. It had been a while since you’d been in physical contact with anyone at all. Mokuba didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.

The car ride to the restaurant was short but felt like it dragged on forever. Mokuba asked you polite questions about how long you’d been with Kaiba Corp. and what you’d done before joining the company. All information he could have looked up in your company file.

By the time the two of you were seated, you were ready to get down to business. Before Mokuba could make idle chit-chat about the food, you asked, “What was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Oh, that. It’s nothing important really.” Mokuba opened the menu, looking over the options.

You stared at him, ignoring your own menu. “You pulled me away from work for nothing?”

He looked up with a raised eyebrow, and you quickly added on, “Sir.” He seemed amused more than anything.

The waitress arrived at the table before Mokuba had a chance to respond. She took your order, and Mokuba surprised you by ordering two sandwiches and an extra water.

“Seto should be here soon,” he explained once the waitress walked away.

“Oh.” That was unexpected. You were torn between the desire to bolt and excitement over seeing the older Kaiba. “Are we waiting on him for… whatever you wanted to talk about?” You hoped not. A meeting with the President and Vice President? That couldn’t be good.

“Not really. I just wanted to convince you to eat with us.” Mokuba shrugged. “But I do have to let you know that Itsuo was complaining about you earlier.”

You tilted your head. “Who?”

“The head of marketing. I guess he asked your team for footage from the game, and you said no?”

“Yes.” You should have known Mokuba was the Mr. Kaiba he was talking about! “Of course I did. We don’t have anything for him, and with the virtual reality pods down for an upgrade, I couldn’t even get any footage if I wanted to.”

“When do you expect gameplay footage to be available for marketing purposes?” Mokuba leaned forward, a serious expression on his face, reminding you of his brother. “Expo season is coming up, and we need all the footage we can get.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure when the pods will be up and running again. I tried to get the information out of Mr. Kaiba, and he nearly—” You stopped before telling Mokuba that his brother nearly bit your head off. “Well, he didn’t have an answer for me. We’re not at the place in development where it would be a good idea anyway.” The waitress showed up, putting the drinks on the table. You thanked her and waited for her to walk away again before continuing. “The battle system is done and we’re just working out the kinks, but the inventory system is a complete mess. If we change that we may need to alter the battle system to adapt to it, and who knows how much will get changed between now and the final result?”

Mokuba sighed. “I guess I was a little optimistic about the progress after being in the game myself. I’ll tell marketing to back off.”

“Thanks… uh…” Maybe you could say it just this once. “Moku...ba.”

His grin stretched from ear to ear, making you feel guilty about avoiding his name for so long.

“Mokuba, I see you have company.”

Kaiba’s voice startled you, and you jumped out of your seat. “Mr. Kaiba. Hi.” Really, could you be any more lame?

He nodded in your direction before sitting down at the table with you and Mokuba. You sat back down in your seat.

“Mokuba. I told you I have limited time today.”

“The food will be here soon, and work will wait for you.”

Kaiba grunted. “Have your teams turned in their quarterly reports yet?”

Mokuba shook his head. “No, Seto. We’re not talking business.”

“I don’t see why not. We can at least be productive.”

Mokuba rolled his eyes. “Seto, there’s more to life than work.” He turned to you. “What about you? What do you do when you’re not at work?”

Put on the spot like that, your brain searched for something to say. “Laundry, grocery shopping, I dunno, stuff you have to do, mostly.” Mokuba frowned at you, and Kaiba ignored the conversation, choosing to look at his phone instead. You tried to remember the last time you’d done anything fun outside of work. To be honest, the testing aspect of your job was probably your favorite pastime. Did that count?

“I used to play video games,” you confessed to Mokuba. “After getting involved in development, I haven’t really been able to get into other games as much. Nothing compares to the Kaiba Corp. games, and I know all the tricks to those now.”

Kaiba’s stare focused on you now. He smirked when you made eye contact with him. “Of course nothing compares to Kaiba Corp.”  

You met his smirk with a smile. “Well, now that you’ve got me in charge of the games, of course.”

He scoffed and turned his attention back to his phone.

Mokuba looked like he wanted to say something, but the waitress showed up with plates of food. You and Mokuba both thanked the waitress as she put your food down. Kaiba didn’t even glance her way.

You began to scarf down the food, hoping you could get back to work as soon as you were done, but Kaiba chose that moment to ask you about the progress report for the game. You tried to swallow your food quickly so you could answer. “Uh. I should have it finished today.”

“No business!” Mokuba glared at you. “I want to have a nice, friendly lunch so we can get to know each other better.” He grabbed his brother’s phone. “You promised I could have half an hour,” he said to Kaiba.

“Mokuba, don’t be ridiculous. You and I know each other quite well, and she’s just an employee.” He held out his phone. “I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I’d know this was your plan.”

You focused on your food at the _just an employee_ comment. Your eyes stung, and you didn’t know why. It was true. You and Kaiba worked together. That was it.  

“Just an employee, Seto?” Mokuba lowered his voice. “You’ve been spending evenings with her. The guards talk, you know.”

You never considered the security guards. They were there around the clock, and the building had internal cameras. It would be easy for them to notice Kaiba going down to your floor after the official work day ended.

“They shouldn’t, and you should know to fire any gossips, Mokuba.”

You wanted to excuse yourself and leave, but you didn’t have any way to get back to work. You could call a car, but then you would have to stand outside and wait until it arrived.

“Seto, you and I both know--”

“Stop it, Mokuba.” Kaiba stood. “We’ll discuss this later. I’m going back to work.” He turned to leave, and you knew that you only had a moment to make a decision.

You got up and walked after him. “Mr. Kaiba.” He didn’t stop walking, but you were able to catch up with him at the entrance of the restaurant. “Could I get a ride back to Kaiba Corp. with you? Mokuba kind of drove me here.”

He paused, looking down at you. Then he nodded. Without a word, he led you over to his car. He unlocked the doors but went straight for the driver’s side, leaving you to open your own door. You got into the car next to him and put on your seat belt.

The car smelled musky, and you thought that you could almost smell coffee. You took a deep breath, knowing that you shouldn’t enjoy the scent.

Kaiba started his car, and the soft notes of a piano filled the car. “I apologize for my brother. I assume he brought you to lunch under false pretenses.”

You stared at Kaiba as he pulled out of his parking spot. This seemed like a trick question. Mokuba hadn’t been honest with you, but could you really tell Kaiba that? Kaiba might be upset with him now, but later he might be upset with you if he felt like you complained too much about his brother.

“It’s okay,” you said, dragging the words out a little. “He wanted to talk to me about something marketing related anyway.”

Kaiba didn’t respond to that and stayed focused on the road.

You let the piano music distract you. It was quiet and a bit wistful. The sound of string instruments wove through the music, and you wondered why you were surprised that Kaiba would listen to such calming music. If anyone needed a little calm in their life, it was him.

The drive was short, possibly because of the way Kaiba drove, and in the blink of an eye, Kaiba was pulling into his designated parking spot.

“Don’t read into my brother’s actions,” he said as he turned the car off.

His blue eyes pinned you back into your seat. You nodded. To be fair, you still hadn’t decided what to think about the whole lunchtime affair.

The two of you sat in silence for a moment. Then Kaiba broke eye contact and got out of the car, leaving you behind. You enjoyed the scent of his car for one final moment before letting yourself out.

Kaiba hadn’t waited and was already striding across the parking lot to the entrance for Kaiba Corp. You ignored the way your heart tightened. You pushed anything you might be feeling to the back of your head. You had work to do.


End file.
